After reeling off seven wins in eight tries to start January, the Hurricanes had reversed course after an abysmal December. The team was still on the outside looking in, but the gap up to the playoff cut line had shrunk significantly. Then on Tuesday against the Rangers the Hurricanes failed to launch and laid an egg. With very little margin for error, that set Friday’s game to be a big one. The Hurricanes had a home match up against a bottom third team in the Senators and desperately needed a win to avoid giving back too much of what was earned in the front part of the month.
Inexplicably, in that situation and desperately needing a win, the Hurricanes again failed to launch. The result was a debilitating 4-1 loss.
Per a tweet shortly after the game ended:
This week is eerily reminiscent of #Canes recent past. Team is able to muster a push after it digs a hole, but for whatever reason (increased pressure? taking foot off pedal? Or…?) getting close again triggers floundering each and every time. This is the next hurdle…
— Canes and Coffee (@CanesandCoffee) January 19, 2019
The Hurricanes just seemed a step slow from the beginning. Early on, the Hurricanes had a decent amount of offensive zone time but seemed to shoot everything into Senators players’ shin guards. Ottawa scored first late in the first period on a rebound chance and then posted two goals in the span of 13 seconds in the front half of the second period to run out to a commanding 3-0 lead. The Hurricanes maybe pushed a bit in the third period but never really did get going.
I will skip the usual version of player notes because it would mostly just be a run of ‘was flat’ pretty much across the board.
A few small positives…
1) Foegele/Maenalanen
This fourth line duo was not perfect either, but they did continue providing depth scoring from the fourth line which is significant.
2) Nino Niederreiter
In his Hurricanes debut, I thought Niederreiter looked good. His combination of power forward size with good agility and skating is part of the formula for a scoring power forward. Here is hoping that the change of scenery helps him become exactly that.
3) Micheal Ferland
Along with Jordan Martinook, Ferland has a sense for the emotional state of a hockey game. Fighting is controversial but as long as it is within the rules, fighting has another lever to be pulled to find a spark. Ferland’s second fight in two games when his team started slowly shows a sense of his team’s energy level and an effort to aggressively flip a switch to dial it up. It seemed to help on Sunday but not on Friday, but I still think his feel for the need is right on the mark.
Next up for the Hurricanes is the first of three on the road in Western Canada when the Canes play Edmonton on Sunday night.
Go Canes!
Lacklaster doesn’t even begin to describe it, it was less than that.
It’s hard to comprehend but sums up the Canes of the last decade, work hard enough to get within a sniffing distance of the playoffs, then fade.
To me this was the decisive game between playoffs and non-playoffs, sadly we all know how it went.
Nino was decent, you sure can’t blame the result on him, ditto the 4th line and Mrazek was not disastrous, though there’s at least one goal he’d like to have back.
But where was the first line, Hamilton, (well most of the defense), Svech keeps fading, he was badly outplayed by Brady. This was just not good enough, not even close.
Well, there’s always next year.
Playoff bound teams win most games against teams below them in the standings.
‘Canes lose two in a row to teams below us in the standings.
This proves even after the latest bulk of wins we are not there just yet. Net result is a 10th place team. Time to sell high on a few players at deadline and look towards 2019-20.
One more thing — not sure if it’s a Raleigh media and/or Team press sort of thing, or if the tough Q&A is edited out, but the media needs to stop being so nice and PC. Post games seesaw like the team’s play, too much celebration after a win, too much ‘turn the cheek and get the feel good quote’ after losses. Maybe that caters to the surface fan, but not the base.
At least Rod provides some glimpses and messages without prompt, and he understands his audience. But for the players to be asked lollipop questions that drive overused clichés, that is not entertainment nor informative. The team right now is too inconsistent and swings too far, which is why I think post games are maddening either way.
First let me say that I am glad that the local media does not include the type who intentionally antagonizes solely to get a reaction/generate an event.
That said, the local media has long been soft in terms of forcing real answers to tough questions on tough nights and during tough stretches. As you said, it works fine for getting a quote or two for an article without any uncomfortableness, but it does little for the deeper part of the fan base.
Agree on both points.
I personally don’t like the post game celebration antics, but I appreciate that the team is trying to make it interesting and add entertainment value. But to me this is just trying to focus attention from an inadequate on ice product.
There should be more tough questions and more accountability, not slaughter the players Toronto style, but at least a bit of pressure.
The team is promising, and I like the addition of Nino, but it’s not yet in the top half of the east.
Time to maximize return on expiring contracts, sign the keepers and try to build a tru playoff calliber roster for 2020. It is very possible with the pieces the team has.
The repeated lack of effort, drive, intensity, commitment – this isn’t a talent issue, this is a culture issue.
And it’s this type of non-effort that makes me leery about spending additional money to see additional games at the arena that go beyond my ticket plan. Who wants to spend money to see games like this??
Accountability should be evenly spread from the last line (which I actually thought was reasonably good) to the stars (after 5 goals in 2 games Aho is now shooting blanks, and his FO% is beyond bad) to team leaders (Williams, who had 3 giveaways last night) to the coaching (don’t apologize to the new guy; figure it out with everybody else).
Based on practice today there is major line structuring coming – rearranging deck chairs??? Short of finding the energy again, we could go into the All-Star break (and more) below hockey-500, and that would be discouraging.
5 pts out of the next 3 games or start loading off pending UFAs for the best deal possible and look forward again to next season.
Chances of 5 pts against Oilers/Flames/Canucks, about 30%.
Oilers are beatable, Flames are difficult, Canucks are unpredictable.
It doesn’t matter, the team got themselves into this hole with a pathetic December and even more pathetic two games with everything on the line.
They better man up or become irrelevant for the 10th season in a row.