On Tuesday night in Raleigh, the Hurricanes will close out a quick burst of four games in six days to start the 2018-19 season against the Vancouver Canucks. With a win, the team will take to the road for a shorter than usual three-game North Carolina State Fair road trip with an impressive 3-0-1 mark to start the season.
The game comes on the heels of a sloppy but wild in a fun way 8-5 win over the New York Rangers on Sunday. The Vancouver Canucks come in after a 7-4 loss to a Bill Peters-coached Calgary Flames team. The game also features a match up of rookie phenoms Elias Pettersson and Andrei Svechnikov. At least based on the headlines and a really short trend line, the game has the potential to be entertaining.
Below are my watch points for the game both in terms of on the ice and also a couple Rod Brind’Amour-related items.
‘What I’m watching’ for the Carolina Hurricanes versus the Vancouver Canucks
1) A cleaner game
As fun as Sunday’s win was, the game strayed significantly from sound and solid. The Hurricanes had multiple defensive break downs, took too many penalties and were just sloppy in general. Were it not for a similarly sloppy effort from the opponent and a generous night from the opposing goalie, Sunday would have ended battle. I give credit where it is due for ‘finding a way’, ‘sticking with it’, ‘overcoming early adversity’, etc., but I would also like to see the team tighten things up a bit on Tuesday.
2) More of the same attacking style
The single best element of the team’s play and the most significant difference in my opinion is the pace, intensity and aggressiveness of the team’s attack especially from the forwards. The players have obviously been cleared to pin their ears back and attack even at the expense of making some errors of aggression. Thus far it is working. And I also think it is an incredibly good approach for a group with young legs and minimal experience in some cases. Trying to be perfect is a failing game, whereas playing to the strengths in a fast-paced game fits the group.
3) Rod Brind’Amour’s first foray into the challenging game of goalie management
I touched on this in my game recap on Sunday. On the one hand, Curtis McElhinney played better on Friday than Petr Mrazek has in his first two starts. On the other hand, Mrazek entered the season as the starter and despite not playing well in my opinion is 1-0-1 with no damage done thus far.
If one goes completely on the earned ice time approach, the McElhinney would start on Tuesday. But I think this is a trap that ignores the fact that the goalie position is different and fails to consider the long game of the 2018-19 season. McElhinney is a 35-year old career backup. He has played more than 30 games exactly once in his career, and that was five years ago. He has averaged 14 games per season in the four years since then. No doubt, if tomorrow’s game were to decide a playoff berth, McElhinney would be an easy choice. But the odds are strongly against McElhinney morphing into a starter who is capable of starting 40-50 games, being strong throughout an 82-game season and being good enough to be part of a playoff push.
So getting to the point, I think betting on McElhinney to be the starting goalie that leads the the team to the playoffs is a lower probability bet than Mrazek or Darling. Some might say not to take it one game at a time, but I think ousting Mrazek from the starting role only two games into the season especially with a win and an overtime loss in two starts could ding his confidence and possibly even trigger an early end to his potential viability as a starter.
With a back-to-back set this weekend, I would go back to Mrazek despite his early struggles and then certainly use McElhinney again in one of the two games this weekend.
So on Tuesday, I will be watching to see how Brind’Amour handles his first quiz on goalie management. And especially if Mrazek gets the start, I will be watching to see how he plays.
4) Keeping the pedal down
The Hurricanes actually had a couple tiny bursts of wins in 2017-18, but one of their biggest issues was a seeming inability to stay heads down. After a couple wins, one could almost feel the sigh of relief or complacency or whatever else set in. The result time and again was a one step forward, two steps back path through the season without any ability to put together a win streak. The 2018-19 team deserves high marks thus far for maintaining a consistent level of intensity. On Tuesday, I will be watching to see if the team can maintain its intensity level and avoid the ‘we’re good now’ lulls from the 2017-18 season.
The puck drops at 7:07pm at PNC Arena.
Go Canes!
You make an interesting point about Mrazek and RBA’s decision right now. I would still go with Mc today because I think it’s also fair for RBA to say that Mrazek was never clearly the starter – I think it was Darling prior to his injury.
So until Darling returns, at least giving each goal equal starts could fit in line with the pecking order.
Yeah, I agree! Neither Darling or Mrazek have staked any claim on the starter position, so you go by head-to-heads competition. Right now MAC leads in my estimation!
Petterson and Svechnikov may be the media and scouts darlings and early Calder Cup candidates, but my money is on Foegele as the Canes top Calder prospect as the season continues. Barring an injury or an out of character lull in effort, I don’t see his game slowing down.
Agree here too…Foegele has been awesome!
I am also curious who RBA goes with in net; I can see the argument for both sides.
I hope Zykov is back in the lineup and I would like to see Fleury get a shot as well; TVR hasn’t looked great on his offside.
Also excited to see Pettersson with all of the hype surrounding him; I agree that Foegele is going to give Svech a run for his money as the team’s best rook.
Let’s get another win!
If I can only have one and I’m given the choice between a cleaner game (#1) and an attacking style (#2), I’m taking an attacking style all day long. After 6 pre-season and 3 regular season games, it’s not too soon anymore to label that as the team’s identity, and we’re either going to win or loose with that identity. I think it’s to Coach RBA’s credit that he has identified the tradeoff between the two this early and is erring on the side of “letting the kids play.” I wouldn’t change that now, especially given how excited the players seems to be and how many goals we’re scoring.
As for the goalie situation, I agree, Matt, that it’s a long season, but RBA will have a hard time selling accountability to the rest of the team if he doesn’t apply it to the goaltenders. I’m rooting for Mrazek to settle in; I think it’s only fair to keep him on a relatively short leash since as darth points out (we suspect) he is only the starter due to injury (though that was never confirmed by RBA). McElhinney has only played one game; if he plays well against either MIN or WIN and Mrazek does not play any better this week, the starter for TBY will be telling. Competition for playing time is good.
While I agree that the identity will be the attacking style, thinking that the team can win regularly by scoring up above 3 break downs from centers that leave players alone with the puck at the top of the crease will be tough sledding in the long run. The fact that Georgiev was a sieve made for a fun win that buried a tough night defensively. The team does not need to be perfect defensively, but I do not see Sunday as anything close to a repeatable formula.
Sunday was not the repeatable formula and the NYR are not good measuring-stick but the CBJ game was, where we were much better defensively made better by excellent goaltending. Yes, Necas (especially) will have to clamp up, but I think that style gives us the best chance to win right now.
Agree. Will be interesting to see if Brind’Amour can keep the fearless mentality and style of play and at the same time tighten things up as the season progresses.
While McElhinney never was part of the goalie rotation plan, his presence here is due to an act of the hockey gods when Darling suffered from lameness late pre-season just before McElhinney hit the waiver wire. For me the optics (not just the much better stats) of McElhinney in his one start vs. the optics of Mrazek in his 2 starts earns McElhinney a claim for starting alternate games for now. The starting job should Mrazek’s to earn, not to lose. His record of 1-0-1, like Cam Ward’s 2-0-1 in Chicago, should not be over valued.
From the morning skate:
F
Foegele-Staal-Williams
Ferland-Aho-Teravainen
McGinn-Necas-Di Giuseppe
Martinook-Wallmark-Svechnikov
D
Slavin-Hamilton
Fleury-Pesce
de Haan-Faulk
G
McElhinney
I see nothing wrong with alternating goalies every other game until it stops working. I prefer that over the Bill Peters “lets running them in the ground” approach.
I am for starting with McElhinney tonight. He looked great against the Blue Jackets, so he’s earned a start IMO. With Darling out for now, I think alternating goalies is the way to go (esp. on back to back games), unless McElhinney’s or Mrazek’s performance takes a huge nosedive.
I see multiple votes for alternating the goalies. With McElhinney in net, I think that starts tonight.
It will be interesting to see how it plays out over the next couple weeks. A smart comment on Twitter earlier today was that the team needs to win in October to avoid digging the usual hole. The goal of getting to mid-December without a deficit for the first time in years is a good one, especially for a team trying to change its attitude/mentality.