Down two games to zero in the first round of the 2019 NHL Playoffs, the Hurricanes needed someone to step up with a heroic effort at home to start climbing back into the series in game 3 at home. In that game, Warren Foegele emerged as the hero scoring the games first and second goals and leading the way in a 5-0 win that put a stake in the ground, made a statement and ultimately propelled the Hurricanes to an exhilarating series win in seven games.
Fast forward to December 28, 2019 and though the stakes are not as high, the Hurricanes do again find themselves needing a win at home against the Capitals after three straight losses. And once again Warren Foegele rose up to lead the way to a big win. First he fired a laser into the net on a 2-on-1 rush on a Jordan Staal pass to put the Hurricanes up 2-0. Then after Washington answered, Foegele responded with a great individual play to win a puck in the neutral zone and later make a pass to Dougie Hamilton who finished to put the Hurricanes back up by two goals at 3-1. After Washington again pulled within a goal, Foegele scored again to push the Hurricanes up by 4-2. Foegele finished off his huge four-point night by appropriately collecting an assist on Svechnikov’s clinching empty-netter.
More than anything, the Hurricanes just needed to win any way possible. Coming in with three straight losses and starting a run of seven straight home games, this game was an important one to stop the negative and start positive again at the front of an important run of schedule. Couple success in that regard with a home holiday win against the Capitals and the game was an overwhelming success.
Lucas Wallmark continued his hot streak with an all-important first goal.
Jaccob Slavin (especially) and Dougie Hamilton matched up against high-end offensive firepower and won the battle.
Jordan Staal had a strong game doing what he does best just being difficult to play against even for the NHL’s best.
The third line with Erik Haula back scored a key goal in the third period to help close out the win.
Instead of faltering when the Capitals pushed back with a goal, the Hurricanes three times answered a Capitals goal with the next strike on the score sheet.
The game featured glimpses of the Canes Achilles’ heel in terms of not being able to methodically convert leads into wins with sound play, but as I noted above this game was more about collecting any kind of win against a good team to reverse momentum for the long home stand.
Next up for the Hurricanes is a New Year’s Eve match up again at PNC Arena against the Montreal Canadiens.
Go Canes!
I’ve never seen Trip so unhappy with the refereeing as in the last two games.
The missed Kreider call (a minor that should’ve been a major)
An abundance of missed calls and non-calls in the Caps game, invariably going against the Canes.
I wonder if the Canes propensity for taking unnecessary penalties has created bad rep with the refs. The Canes take enough legit penalties, they don’t need bad refereeing on top of that.
It’s fun to have a team that is truly 4 lines deep and the ZNH line (with the two new forwards and Necas) has been one of the best third lines I have seen in recent Canes history.
Walmark is on fire.
Staal has found some new mojo with Caps killer Fogele and Svech.
The only concern scoring wise is that the top line is not playing like a top line right now. Aho and TT are not the dynamic duo they were on the road and Nino is just not scoring. Since every player goes through ups and downs I hope that this unit will get going soon.
Still way too many giveaways and bad decisions at the blue lines, the Canes simply have to find a way to clean up that part of their game, it’s great to have pinching defensemen, awful when they pinch at the wrong time and create odd man rushes against.
I thought Fleury played pretty well yesterday. I don’t know what the thought is but the plan is probably to trade him or TVR + a pick for a decent rental or a forward with potential.
Gardner continues to play meh, even if Trip is determined to sell every bit of non-disastrous play as great progress. He’s the least successful summer signing so far, hope he will be the next Hamilton or at least that he won’t be the next Darling.
After the disaster in Toronto and the doomed-from-the-start affairs at MSG this was a game the team had to have, and they came together and found away.
If they get 2 points out of the next two games they’re at a 100 point pace at the halfway point, ideally they get 3 or 4 points out of those for a pace of 102 on the season and a 2 to 3 game cushion for the second half (assuming the playoff cutoff line at 96 points).
As we know from the last season, anything can happen in the second half.
Off topic:
Calvin De Haan has had season ending shoulder surgery. Jeff Skinner is out 3-4 weeks with an “upper body” injury.
A lot of people have been speculating it is a concussion – but they never offer return times for concussions. From the hit, it looks like a shoulder injury.
Sad about De Hann. It happened again. I really liked him but I felt management was concerned about the injury history which was occurring. I wish him the best.
CDH was one of the Blackhawks’ best d men until he went down, still it was a risk the Canes weren’t willing to take and maybe we’re seeing why (then again, maybe it’s just a coincidence), either way the haul for him was pretty modest (doesn’t look like either Forsling nor Forsberg are in the Canes NHL plans, current or future).
Here’s to a speedy Skinner recovery. The trade is too far removed from the current roster for me to speculate on it.
The prospect we got from Stl in the Faulk trade is tearing it up for the Germans in the World Juniors, and he’s a right shot to boot. Hopefully he’ll be the next year’s dark horse.
Gauthier and Prisky are both playing well recently in Charlotte and Smallman is picking up the pace.
CdH, as I understand it, was a salary dump trade when we knew an offer sheet was coming for Aho but didn’t know the amount. As in any salary dump trade, we include a “sweetener” (Saarela) and get lower end/priced talent in return.
The officiating has been crap the last two game. How Kreider’s head shot did not draw a suspension is beyond me. I thought the NLH was supposed to be reviewing things, right. That was deliberate. Caps game was ridiculous. I truly hope there are consequences to the refs for this junk. The NHL should be embarrassed. Incompetence by the refs in any sport gets under my skin, even when it goes my way.
Our goaltending is not great. I love the Mrazek emotion but he is letting to many in. An occasional great game but the statistics do not lie. To me that is our weakness. We can’t score 6 goals every game. Weak defense, some times, but goaltending is not where it needs to be. Just my opinion for what I am seeing.
Your comments echo those of Matt – we have a team that can frequently outscore our mistakes. That is not sound hockey and I think it has to drive RBA nuts.
I wonder if ctcaniac has seen some insight from fancy stats as to who our consistent culprits are in the mistake zone – probably something in the goals/shots against 5×5.