I was one of (many?) who had a tough time with the NC State Fair traffic situation despite arriving quite a bit early. As such, my viewpoint of the game includes some combination of seeing the second half and hearing about and seeing highlights for the first half. But sometimes (though it is not my style :-)), the simplest explanation captures the most significant points without noise.
With a 1-3-1 mark in their last five games, the Hurricanes desperately needed to seize the opportunity against a struggling Blackhawks team. They did — in spades.
The team entered the game with a number of key players struggling to the point where they were clearly carrying extra weight on their shoulders. The game was utterly magical in terms of wiping the slate clean for pretty much that entire set of players.
Petr Mrazek was in pulled in the Anaheim loss and despite a strong stretch of play was not great in Thursday’s loss to Columbus. The Hurricanes outplayed Chicago such that Mrazek did not need to stand on his head, but he still gets credit for being perfect and logging a shutout.
Andrei Svechnikov has been productive early in the 2019-20 season, but it was becoming increasingly important for him to finally break through in the goal column (his prior tally was an empty-netter), and he did to the tune of two goals. I have been clamoring for
Nino Niederreiter also had to be feeling the pressure still sitting on zero goals scored entering the game. His goal and assist to boot should boost his spirits, relieve pressure and hopefully be a starting point for charting a course upward.
Sebastian Aho who has no doubt been fighting it a bit two had his first multi-point night of the season.
Because of the Blackhawks’ struggles, there was no doubt an element of preying on a weaker opponent, but the needed win coupled with the number of weights lifted off players shoulders has the chance to make this much more meaningful than two points in the standings.
Would love to hear others’ more detailed observations in the comments.
Next up for the Canes is another home match up on Tuesday against Bill Peters, Noah Hanifin, Elias Lindholm and Derek Ryan.
Go Canes!
I was OOT and could only listen to the third. What were the lines today? I heard Aho mentioned with Foegele (Svech-Aho-Foegele??) and Gibbons and Necas mentioned together quie a bit.
But today it seemed to be all about forecheck, excellent special teams, and solid goaltending.
Yes, Aho-Svech-Foegele was a line and they looked real good. Foegele was a forechecking menace and created havoc. Aho was back to his old self and had some giddy-up in his step. Svech seemed to thrive on the top line. I hope they run with this line for a bit.
And was it Nino-Staal-Turbo?
Was Necas still with Haula on the third?
No reason to break up Necas-Haula-Dzingel. They have been our No 1 line most of this season.
The canes were pretty even in their use of players yesterday.
And thanks.
That does sound like a great funtional combo. If Foegele can play that role on a top line and contribute, that’s excellent.
Grrr my big write up was lost. My re-compose later.
PS 2 recent posts were lost. Both times after following a link from twitter. There may be a bug on that path.
I have had the same happen a few times. When I write a long post I try to remind myself to copy it first before hitting “Submit Comment”.
Will have web developer look at it to see if he can figure anything out. I have lost a few posts but not in a long time.
Is anyone else having regular issues losing posts?
Please let Svech + Aho be a thing. Foegele has been steadily playing better last few games, although I’d be surprised to see him with Aho for long.
I think the top 3 lines looked good. With Martinook out the 4th line is in a bit of a flux and I’d like to see more from them, to be honest.
BG was sent straight down after the game yesterday. So far he hasn’t done much for me, a borderline 13th forward at best.
I’m hoping to see Gauthier given another shot or maybe our newest Finn, who is tearing it up down in Clt (I know AHL success does not nearly always translate to NHL but a guy on a 6-game point streak might be teased with a chance to play in the men’s league).
I don’t think they will bring up Luostarinen too quickly. He has only had 8 games on the small ice. Warshofsky has said he is making an excellent adjustment to the North American game and he is fun to watch.