After a stellar 3-0-1 start, the Carolina Hurricanes will embark on what this year will be a brief North Carolina State Fair road trip. The trip will present a good test for Rod Brind’Amour and his team matching up against playoff caliber competition and facing teams that have defensemen who can move the puck. As such, Saturday’s game and the two that follow could represent a meaningful benchmark at this early point in the season.
From my Daily Cup of Joe from Friday, I am on record as having concerns with the repeatability of the team’s 3-0-1 start. Saturday will represent the first of three tests to hopefully show that my concerns are unwarranted.
In the first of three tests, my watch points are below.
‘What I’m watching’ for the Carolina Hurricanes versus the Minnesota Wild
1) The effectiveness of the forecheck
The Hurricanes bread and butter so far have been the ability of the forwards pretty much across all lines to utilize an aggressive style of play to win pucks, win the possession battle and tilt the ice into the offensive zone. Minnesota brings a stronger defense group than some of the early wins, so I will be watching to see if the Hurricanes forecheck is still effective.
2) Brind’Amour on the road
When asked about the team, Brind’Amour almost always adds something along the lines of ‘the focus is on us.’ The attitude and approach is straight out of the Peter Laviolette handbook. And the Hurricanes deep and balanced blue line does make it possible to just mostly roll three defense pairings. But at forward, Brind’Amour does match up a bit more and adjust ice time to situations. So Saturday represents a second road game this season to watch how Brind’Amour deploys his lineup on the road without the last change.
3) Goaltending
Curtis McElhinney followed up a stellar Hurricanes debut on Thursday with a decent even if maybe less spectacular win on Tuesday. Almost for certain, the back-to-back on Saturday and Sunday will see each goalie play a game. Regardless of who starts, goaltending continues to be an every game watch point.
4) Special teams
After a strong preseason in terms of special teams, the team has struggled so far in the regular season. The has an empty-net power play goal but otherwise is 0 for 9 so far. The penalty kill is only 10 for 14 and also struggling. Winning on a consistent basis in the NHL is hard for teams who are minus on a regular basis in the special teams battle. As such, on Saturday night, I will be watching closely to see how the team fares on special teams.
The puck drops at an odd 6pm on Fox Sports Carolinas with John, Tripp and Mike.
Go Canes!
I’m very interested to see if Zykov is back on the Necas line tonight. I rewatched the Islanders and Blue Jackets games and found Necas was more impressive in those games than I had realized. He creates scoring chances, including 2-on-1s that will turn to goals when there is greater skill on the wing. I think Zykov was a factor in Necas’ better play because Zykov does more than di Giuseppe to get the puck and maintain possession, winning more board battles and making better passes.
Rewatching the two games also convinced me that Martinook is a lot better than I thought. I think he is both faster and more skilled, and the physical element really helps the Wallmark line. Now I would be curious to see Necas centering Martinook and Zykov. Having two big, physical wings would help Necas in some respects.
I doubt it will happen soon, but I think the Canes would be best off now with Svechnikov on the Necas line despite the inexperience. Svechnikov plays a surprisingly mature game for an 18-year-old. He’s a real factor in his own zone, causes turnovers, wins board battles and usually makes good passes. And he would cash in opportunities that Necas creates.
A final impression from rewatching the two games is that neither the Islanders nor the Blue Jackets were pushovers. The Isles were bigger and faster than I thought and had better defensemen too – either that or they are just playing much better under Trotz.
The Blue Jackets’ speed gave the Canes’ fits. It wasn’t just Necas that kept finding a Blue Jacket in his face faster than expected. The same happened to Williams and others repeatedly. Of course, the Canes’ returned the favor. They were not overmatched.
In both games, they faced excellent goaltending and could easily have scored more goals. On the other hand, both Mrazek and McIlhenny prevented even more goals than I had thought. This reinforces the 3rd point above – the Canes probably need another strong performance in goal to beat the Wild.
Eric Staal will be a good test for the Canes’ D tonight. He was very noticeable winning puck battles around the net in the Wild’s win over the Blackhawks. Can the Canes D-men neutralize their former captain when the game is on the line?
Projected lineup per Michael Smith:
F
Foegele-Staal-Williams
Ferland-Aho-Teravainen
McGinn-Necas-Zykov
Martinook-Wallmark-Svechnikov
D
Slavin-Hamilton
de Haan-Faulk
van Riemsdyk-Pesce
G
McElhinney
The only things I feel confident about is the skating, and aggressive offense and forecheck!
Defense, team defense, should be the tipping point, I hope!
Jordan may negate Eric, so it’s up to the other lines to dominate, or eek out an edge, eh?