After a parking and traffic nightmare bad enough to launch a ‘never again’ mantra many years ago, the Canes played their first game at home during the North Carolina State Fair in many years. Probably helped a bit by rainy weather and enough who just stayed away as demonstrated by the ‘meh’ attendance, the traffic and parking were not that bad. But despite the results were not favorable with the Hurricanes losing their third straight by a 3-1 margin.
Most concerning was the plodding rainy Saturday afternoon pace. We did see worse occasionally in 2017-18, but this game was clearly a low point for the Rod Brind’Amour era in terms of playing an attacking game with pace that dictates style of play. I would go so far far as to say that the game was reminiscent of old school Canes losses that featured a sizable shot advantage that was a bit misleading in terms of creating and finishing high quality chances. On the other side of the ledger, the Avs picked their spots to selectively counter punch with a relatively low volume but fairly high quality of chances coupled with some finishing.
The game started okay with the Hurricanes playing even or better hockey out of the gate. A soft goal against that squeaked through Curtis McElhinney on the short side staked the Avalanche to a lead in the first period. The Hurricanes would finish the first period with an 11 to 7 shot advantage but minus the ability to overwhelm the opponent early as they have in other games.
The second period was a bit choppy early but saw the Hurricanes get back to mounting a shot advantage. Goalie Philipp Grubauer was solid spanning all three periods, and pulling from the past, the Hurricanes just could not find the back of the net. Along the way, the Avalanche scored a power play goal when his own pass caromed right back to him for a quick shot and goal.
The third period was more of the same. The Hurricanes piled on shots, but too many were medium or less quality, and true to form the Avs stars continued to capitalize on low volume but high quality chances when Nathan MacKinnon picked a corner and scored on a 2-on-1. The Hurricanes would push back after digging a 3-0 hole, but the Ferland goal was good only for extending his goal streak and Aho’s point streak and not really for getting the Canes back into the game.
Player and other notes
Micheal Ferland
Ferland was arguably the biggest positive in the loss. The Ferland/Aho/Teravainen had a better night than the score sheet might indicate. Ferland did score late on an Aho pass, but they could have had a goal or two earlier. Ferland was stopped on a breakaway, and Aho had the puck poked off his stick at the last second on another partial breakaway. In addition to the score sheet stuff, Ferland showed a great feel for the status of the game. When the Canes were down a couple and fading a bit, Ferland had a shift where he laid two big hits and then found a fight for the second. Ideally, a push comes more naturally but when it just is not forthcoming, it is at least worth a try to try to spark the bench a bit.
Teuvo Teravainen
For me, Teravainen’s start has not been as bad as some measures and reviews might indicate. That said, hockey is a results business and his have been modest thus far. His only goal is an empty-netter. He passed on at least three decent shooting opportunities, and none of the three resulted in better shots. With Aho in the center slot, Teravainen needs to play with the mentality that one of his objectives is to score 30 goals. That means having a bias to shoot the puck more.
The top of the roster
The Avalanche’s top line of Gabriel Landeskog, Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen came into the game red hot. The Hurricanes were unable to slow them, and that trio was the difference on the scoreboard tallying all three Avalanche goals. A common divider between the winning streak to start and the current losing streak is the fact that the first batch of teams generally lacked true top scoring lines and were more balanced whereas the last three losses have all come to teams that have top-end scorers that drive their success.
Still nothing on special teams
The special teams woes that have plagued the team all season were not, at least as far as results, cured over the three-day layoff. The Hurricanes power play which looks increasingly hesitant was ‘meh’ at best in going 0 for 5, and the Avalanche struck once going 1 for 4. The Hurricanes were minus yet again in terms of special teams which has become a recurring theme.
Dougie Hamilton
Going in the opposite direction of Teravainen who is maybe overthinking things a bit with the puck on his stick, Dougie Hamilton has been pumping shots at the net knowing he needs to break through. He had six shots on net on Saturday and seemed to looking to shoot whenever he could. Here is hoping it leads to a break through because with only four goals in the past three games the team has reached the point where it could use a couple more sources of offense.
The curse continues
The ongoing Arturs Irbe goalie curse that still no one is willing to believe continues to reincarnate itself in increasingly nasty forms. The latest creative twist actually sees the damage done in the opposing net where backup goalies are utterly dominating the Hurricanes early in 2018-19. Against a lot that includes Thomas Greiss (arguably a starter in more of a 1A/B situation), Alexandar Georgiev, Laurent Brossoit, Louis Domingue and Philipp Grubauer, the Hurricanes are 1-3-1. The opposing goalies have a combined .942 Save Percentage. What’s more, that includes a tough night in the only Canes win against Georgiev. The other three games feature a Goals Against Average barely north of 1.00 and a Save Percentage of .970.
How much more must we endure before someone breaks down and wears the bucket style Jofa helmet to put this curse in the past?
Next up is a Monday road match up against a Detroit Red Wings team that has yet to win. ‘Must win’ is never the case in October, but whatever the October maximum is for needing a win, I think the Hurricanes have reached it.
Go Canes!
Did you leave early, Matt? I wouldn’t blame you – but the score was 3-1. 😀
Deja vu all over again – not just on the ice but in the interviews afterwards. With three losses in a row and an absolutely busted power play I think I would want to hear more pushback from the coach and captain.
Thanks for keeping me honest. Posted a little hastily trying to put article up before rest of day’s schedule.
Well, hopefully this is one of the tough stretches that all teams, even the best, hit during the season, but there are factors that worry me.
The game was straight out of last season’s handbook, with all the talk of a new attitue, approach, going to the net, all that stuff, it has been pretty evident, or it was in the first 5, but today all that disappeared.
We all knew before the season started that RBA is not a tactical coach and his special teams CV is very unimpressive. The team did not hire him the help he needs in terms of systems and drafting plays, it is beginning to show and show badly. His “go in there and play hard” mantra is fun when things go well but is not satisfactory, it doesn’t solve the problem.
I was exctied when the team grabbed Curtis of the Tor waiverwire. His record is mixed so far and today he came up short.
Bishop was invisible today. I remember seeing one draw he took (he won that draw) but nothing else, literally nothing else.
Can’t jugge a kid on one game, but I expected to see more effort and hussel from him.
This game was meh or worse, not what I wanted to see from a rested squad, playing at home after a 3-day layoff.
The DTW game is a must win, if the team squanders its 4 game winning streak instantly and fals back to the middle of the pack below the cutoff line, that doesn’t bode well.
Bishop had a solid hit on his first shift, which I found to be an encouraging start. But after that he and his entire line looked lost. He only ended up with about 7 minutes of ice time.
The difference in this game was a soft goal early, poor special teams, and the Canes lack of ability to bury a puck.
I disagree that the effort wasn’t there. The first period was kind of sluggish, but the Canes carried the play 5 on 5 for the rest of the game. You also have to credit Colorado for playing well defensively and locking down the front of the net. Canes got few second chances.
Colorado didn’t get too many grade A chances, but when they did their stars buried the puck. Canes still lack a true finisher. Svechnikov continues to create chances but can’t finish. Twice tonight. Teravainen had a grade A chance on the PPin the third, but mishit a one timer on a nice feed from Aho. In close games you have to bury your chances. That isn’t coaching. That is talent.
Kudos to Ferland for standing up for Aho and getting into it with Johnson. After immediately crushing two of Johnson’s teammates Ferland was challenged. Johnson probably regrets that. Immediate energy for the Canes.
The Canes aren’t going to overwhelm teams on a regular basis. Other teams are good, too. Somehow the Canes have to bury pucks. This is a problem coaching can’t solve.
Good points. There were flashes of individual efforts and lack of finishing was evident, a lot like in years past. And one or two cases of bad puck luck.
But I think special teams are coachable, there are teams with less talent than the Canes doing much better on special teams, that is on RB or on ownership for not getting a special teams coach.
And if this team lacks finishing talent it is either on ownership for not having acquired the needed talent during the offseason or it means that playoffs are not a requirement this year. Maybe that Nylander trade is not such a bad idea after all.
Well, still above 500, no need to panic yet, 2 classic games in the books that were downright awesome to watch, so let the Canes crazy train roll on, we are all aboard.
I agree 100% on special teams. They have to be better. Teravainen on the point of the PP is scary to me. The PK isn’t that hard. They should be able to fix that quicker than the PP. Finishing is as much an issue on the PP as it is 5 on 5.
Breezy, you have identified the correct culprits for our deficiencies IMO. It’s coaching and management.
After a preseason and a couple of games at the beginning of the season where the Canes attacked relentlessly at high speed with all 5 players on the ice, the Canes have gone back into the shell of defense first (don’t make any mistakes boys) hockey of last season. The result is no scoring and a couple of errors on our part resulting in a close loss. Sure we shot a lot, but with our forwards we need to shoot with everyone attacking the net. The last two games we have not done this. I expressed this sentiment at the game to my friends, and low and behold Forslund expressed the same on the Aftermath show. We need to use our speed attacking relentlessly (like we did in the third period). Otherwise, I only see the same pattern as last years team showed. Lots of games where we outshoot our opponents and lose by one or two goals. I was disappointed with Brindamoor’s comments after the game as he doesn’t seem to grasp a poor (miserable is a better word) power play, poor penalty kill, and no offense doesn’t add up to a “good effort” to me. I’m tired of looking for silver linings based upon cherry picking individual player plays to convince myself things are improving. I want to see wins and a style of play that accentuates the strengths of our players and not some form of hockey from 1980-2010 period of hockey. 40 minutes of lousy hockey with 20 minutes of scrambling to make up a for a resulting 3 goal deficiency doesn’t make for entertaining hockey.
Today’s TSN NHL has an article highlighting the Leafs current losing streak after a red hot start. ( https://www.tsn.ca/talent/leafs-continue-to-cool-down-in-loss-to-blues-1.1195464) Change the Leaf’s references to Cane’s references and the article could be about either team. The article suggests their is enough film now for teams to be ready for their opponents new tactics. The opponent’s coaches are adapting. Teams are ready. The question begged is how does BDA adapt the teams play? In the 3 loses, the most skilled players on the other teams found the open slots left by our goal tenders. Our most skilled players could not do the same in those 3 games. 8 games into the season we are seeing the questions the Canes came into the season with unresolved. Goal tending is not going to cut it. Scoring is getting to be less than teased in the first 5 games. Has scoring improved enough? After a frustrating losing streak against good teams, it’s easy to feel down. Yet the standings betray my feelings. We are in the hunt and that was really the best we could hope to achieve at this point.
There is no arguing that the Canes special teams are bad. The kill has to improve quickly. That doesn’t require talent. The PP has issues, one of them being no real sniper.
Still, the team controlled the game 5 on 5 yesterday. I can’t find a real gamesheet, but while at the game the shots for and agains 5 on 5 were crazy in favor of the Hurricanes. They have gone cold. Unless the stop dominating territorially they will have better games than yesterday. Long term the team needs to find a scorer who isn’t one dimensional. Hopefully that will be Svechnikov, but he isn’t there yet. McKinnon is that kind of player. Landeskog is just plain hot right now. McKinnon was the biggest star on the ice yesterday and he played like it.
This is not the time for “the sky is falling.” This team is way better than last season. Are they a real contender for the Cup? Likely not. Still a few players and some experience away from that level.
It wasn’t so much 20 minutes as approx. 5 minutes of real desperation hockey.
I’m trying to make this sound good but I am just downright pissed at what I saw today. We’ve suffered long enough, give us something better.
Parking was a breeze, unfortunately the best part of the day. Team goal tending SV% is now .883, solid in the race for worst in the league. Left the arena acutely reminded the team was unable to recruit Grubauer this summer. Can’t believe I’m saying this, ” we want Darling back!”.
It wasn’t on the Canes that they didn’t get Grubauer. Washington smartly chose not to trade him in the division. The Canes offered a deal, Washington then shopped that deal and took less for Grubauer. Nothing they could do.
lessthanstable, The Caps traded Grubauer and Orpik for a second round pick. The Avalanche then bought out Orpik allowing the Caps to resign Orpik for just $1million, a salary $3million lower than his previous salary in Washington. The Avalanche basically got the goalie for a second plus the value of Opik’s buyout ($4million). I’m unaware of the Canes offer for Grubauer, but would be curious to know what you heard. I’m confident you are correct the Caps would avoid trading Grubauer to the Canes, directly fixing a division rival in the process. Still he would have been a great add to our team.
Maybe Hamilton should be put on the first PP unit and drop Faulk down to the second in an effort to shake things up a bit. Also, I wouldn’t mind trying Svechnikov on the Jordan Staal line, with Justin Williams dropping down to the third line and paired with McGinn and Wallmark. I would expect RBA to start tinkering but we’ll see.
To keep things in perspective, we should be happy that Aho is succeeding in his new 1C role and that our top line looks good, although Teravainen for some reason looks tentative to shoot. Also, we’re not talking about poor goalie play right now which is refreshing. Roy, Kuokkanen and Gauthier are knocking very hard on the door and could soon earn their right for a call-up. All-in-all I am happy with our start; our 3 losses have been to very good teams but I would say we were at least competitive in all. A win in Detroit will keep us in first place – a position all of us would have been pleased with prior to the start of this season.
The combined SV% for Mrazek and McElhinney is .883. That will not go unnoticed for very long. There will be growing hopefulness that Darling is recovering rapidly.
If Svechnikov should be moved to any line it should be the Aho line. Teravainen is not pulling his weight. The Staal line is doing it’s job. They are the top checking line you know. Their #1 job is not letting the other team’s top line to score. I don’t think Svechnikov fits that line like he would the top scoring line.
Goaltending has been bad. Hopefully Darling will step it up. McElhinny is not impressive. Mrazek has flashed, but he has been bad too. Hoping for the best.