Now officially inside of a week until the NHL trade deadline and three-fourths of the way through the 2015-16 NHL season, the Carolina Hurricanes are still playing games that matter. My math which adjusts for games played has the Canes entering Tuesday night 5 points behind the Red Wings (Canes are +4; Red Wings are +9). Meanwhile, Eric Staal’s name continues to be bandied about in the trade deadline articles.
The Canes come into the game having lost 2 of their last 3 games which pulled their February record down to a respectable but maybe not quite good enough 4-3-2. The team finishes the month with another busy week with 4 games, 3 of which are at home. After that and the passing of the trade deadline, the Canes hit the road for most of March. The road-heavy March schedule makes it even more important for the team to capitalize on the remaining home games in February.
Against that backdrop, the Carolina Hurricanes and Philadelphia Flyers take to the ice at PNC Arena on Tuesday night. The game is a battle of 2 teams in the tier of teams that are still within reach of the spots in the standings that matter but with work to do to move into the tier above them. The Flyers will be without captain Claude Giroux but might get Sean Couturier back. Couturier skated Monday and will be a game day decision. Especially minus Giroux, he would be a significant addition. Meanwhile the Canes are still waiting patiently for the return of Justin Faulk. He skated Sunday and continues to be a game-day decision. I am not a doctor and do not have context on the short clip, but in the short video shown in the pregame on Sunday, he still seemed to skating/moving really gingerly.
Regardless of who is in the lineup, the game is a huge 1 for both teams, and excuses count for nothing this time of year.
Here is what I will be watching for Tuesday’s game:
1) Who’s in? Who’s out?
As noted above, the status of 2 key players are in limbo. The Flyers could really use Couturier to at least back fill the hole left by Giroux. The Canes blue line has been pretty solid, and Faulk’s replacement, Michal Jordan, even had a timely goal on Sunday. But the Canes are better with Justin Faulk in the lineup, so here is hoping that he returns Tuesday.
2) Can Canes find a tighter game?
The Canes continue to play generally good hockey, but a few of the recent losses have been plagued by a couple too many mistakes to win against good teams. My tally of soft goals in recent games is 4 (3 from really bad angles and 1 turnover behind the net). The team has taken a few bad and/or untimely penalties in recent games. And the attention to detail, while not horrible, can be and needs to be a little bit better.
3) Will the last line find the ignition switch in time?
Jordan Staal’s line continues to be somewhere in between very good and flat out dominant on a nightly basis. The fourth line has picked up some slack with needed secondary scoring. And Skinner/Rask/Lindholm has been fairly consistently chipping in offense largely from its offensive leader Jeff Skinner. The last puzzle piece at forward continues to be Eric Staal’s line. The line continues to play a decent possessional hockey game but has just been unable to turn it into goals. Kris Versteeg, who is scheduled to become a free agent this summer and is potentially a trade deadline rental, boiled over on Sunday and did all he could to destroy the penalty box after a call that he disagreed with on Sunday. Eric Staal is getting deeper and deeper into the trade deadline pressures in the middle of a huge goal-scoring drought. Time could literally be running out for this line. Can they find a scoring touch? If so, is it the fuel needed to make 1 more run higher in the standings and in the process shock the hockey world?
4) Goaltending
On Sunday, Cam Ward saw an impressive run of 9 consecutive games with at least a point in the standings end. Ward has been good overall of late but let in a soft goal from a bad angle that was arguably the difference in the game and was outplayed by Ben Bishop. Sunday was 1 of those nights in which the margin for error was small and 1 unfortunate goal was 1 too many. It was not that Ward was horrible, but there was clearly room to be better and the Canes needed that better on Sunday. As a more specific extension of #2 above, the Canes need a sound effort in net on Tuesday.
The puck drops on another big game now in late February at 7:07pm at PNC Arena.
Go Canes!
