With an intensity level and atmosphere much above ho-hum preseason level, the Hurricanes closed out its preseason schedule with a 4-3 loss to the Washington Capitals.
With free tickets for the Caniac Carnival day, the event was a sell out. And with the NHL version of the Capitals that lost to the Hurricanes last April in town, the intensity level and chippiness on the ice were both also high.
The result was as good of an atmosphere as you can get for a preseason game.
In terms of readying for the games that matter, the game was a mixed bag. Abbreviated notes follow below:
Teravainen/Aho/Svechnikov played like one would hope from a strong first scoring line. Who netted two goals and Svechnikov and Teravainen were also dangerous all game.
The biggest downside was the continued lack of attention to detail defensively. The team continues to give up too many grade A chances off the rush and losing track of players in scoring areas.
I thought Slavin/Hamilton rebounded well after a tough night on Friday.
I thought the fourth line centered by Wallmark was quietly good. Wallmark had a strong game battling for ice space in front of the goalie creating havoc on multiple shots but not garnering a goal for his effort. Similarly, Gauthier made plays toting the puck to the front of the net like a fullback charging for a first down. Those too netted nothing but continue to be positive. But if that duo stuck as a fourth line and played every game like Sunday’s they would be a very productive group.
The game forced the Hurricanes to stand up for themselves. Public enemy #1 Tom Wilson was running around a bit and barking at Warren Foegele (because of the hit that injured T.J. Oshie in the playoffs) every chance he could. Garnet Hathaway was running around the entire game. Roland McKeown fought Hathaway. The Canes took a series of penalties in the second period returning fire. In a regular season game with greater consequences, the Canes will need to be able to answer without piling up 5-on-3 situations against. But in a preseason game, I think the response was okay.
Roland McKeown continues to have a strong training camp. I have not ever been really high on his chances to be more than a #5 or #6 defenseman. But at least until Trevor van Riemsdyk returns, the Hurricanes need one of those. I would expect Fleury to get the start on opening night, but I think McKeown has made a strong enough case to be considered quickly if Fleury falters.
We are not only four days away from Carolina Hurricanes 2019-20 regular season hockey!
Go Canes!
The atmosphere was downright special, Trip said it was the best preseason game he’s ever witnessed in terms of fan intensity or attendance in over 20 years working for the Canes. I sure had fun.
First line was good, this could be our legit top line going forward.
Mrazek was a bit of a mixed bag. The The Caps’ 5 on 3 goal was a wicked shot but it went through him.
The Canes are now 1 for 10 or 11 on the PP in the last 2 games, that has to be better, but at least they got one. Hopefully Gardner can step in and make a difference. Sounds like he is close, he may even be on the opening night roster.
They were only 2 for 7 on the kill, but we can toss it up to preseason recklessness I suppose.
Defending the rush is the d’s biggest problem now, hopefully once the defense pairings settle they can work on sorting out assignments.
Gauthier could well take Foegele’s spot on the third or forth line if Foegele fails to reignite. I think Necas has firmly entrenched himself in Clt to start with.
It sounds like Dzingel might be up and ready by next week, if he comes as advertized it could be a good third line. Hala showed some flashes of skill yesterday.
I’d bring Kuok back up and team him with Staal and Nino on the second line, TT fits better on the top line but Kuok brings a slightly lighter version of the playmaking + he is responsible defensively.
Wait, we can’t do that because of the Mearlaux favor, Tor must be laughing their backsides off.
To your last point, this is why I think this summer was a lot of Dundon shooting from the hip. No plan, just winging it.
I agree on Svech-Aho-Turbo being very strong last night; just as Nino-Staal-Turbo was good on Friday. Turbo is good. 😀 The question will be on which of those two lines do you put Turbo?
I was also impressed by Wallmark – both Friday and last night. I recall the enthusiasm he showed last Monday at Meet the Canes and it is translating to confident and solid play.
Am I missing something with Haula? – he looks neither fast nor particularly good.
Did anyone catch what happened to Bishop? – he left the game early.
One thing I have noticed about Gauthier – he may be a bull driving to the net, but the puck has no momentum in front of the goalie and is always an easy stop.
Kudos to McKeown for dropping the gloves after the (clean) hit on Gibbons. As RBA said afterwards that was all about showing toughness and standing up for teammates in a bid to make the team. Hathaway skated past him without even knowing McKeown had challenged him.
And you have to find that video of the sequence when Wilson got his 10-minute misconduct. He was riding Foegele when WF went to the bench. RBA took a step or two over and clearly said “f#ck you” to Wilson, and that is when Wilson went ballistic. Hilarious.
Rivalries are created in the playoffs – and yesterday’s game shows the answer to the question of who is the Canes major rival. SJ and LV had a barnburner yesterday as well – they also had a first round series go 7.
With you on Huala. I hope it’s just rust.
I also agree that Gauthier is pretty much a one trick pony. Rest of his game still needs work. May still be enough to get a look with the Canes with the injuries up front.
Teravainen is becoming the player the Canes move around to get others going. High praise.
If Brind’Amour doesn’t think anyone can handle their off side on D McKeown may have a shot to make the club. That would mean they keep 2 extra D as I don’t think they are going to waive Fleury. Tough to do with forwards nicked up and a long roadtrip coming. Will be very interesting.
Start Turbo on Aho’s line, then juggle down the road. Turbo is probably better suited for 2nd line role long term, but for now we need to start strong and that means getting Aho going. We all know how that went in late December last year when they were paired on the PK…boom in standings.
Haula is probably just rusty — he will come through.
The top line of Aho, Teravainen and Svechnikov looked good and IMO should remain intact. Regarding the rest of the forwards: (1) Haula looked good on faceoffs, defense and penalty kills. He needs to knock rust off his offensive game. (2) Gauthier has played himself on to this team. Not only is he an offensive force, but there was evidence in yesterday’s game that his defensive game coming along. For example, when the defensemen pinched he immediately went to cover the abandoned point. He was a bull on the boards. (3) Wallmark shot for a change and what do you know, he scored! He needs to select that option more often as otherwise he is an excellent NHL player. (4) Foegle has turned into a pacifist when it comes to shooting. He is constantly trying to make passes when he has good looks for a shot on goal. (5) Niederreiter’s game was best he has had in preseason. Looks like he is rounding into form. He was not teamed up on a line with Aho and TT so he will have to work harder for his goals. (6) No Jordan or Dzingl so not sure what lines will be when season starts.
Defensively, lots of breakdowns 5 on 5. On the penalty kills Washington used many back door plays to score and when they didn’t score it was because of misconnections on passes to open wingers (especially Oshie) on the backdoor. If we continue to play defense like that in season, our goalies will get killed.
Power play. We don’t have one or if we do it is simple. Just throw it back to the point and let the point man shoot (after making three or four useless slow passes) and scramble for a rebound if by chance one of the forwards bothers to go to the front of the net. We got a goal on one by having two or three players in front of the net to secure a rebound and put in the net following this pattern.
That was a fun game to watch. It made the extraordinarily long walk from my car worth it.
I like what I saw from a couple of players. Mrazek looked good. Hard to fault him on the goals. Our defense (overall team) was porous. Oshie spent far too much time standing unmolested in our crease.
Kudos to McKeown. Fighting is obviously not something he does. It took a lot of courage to fight the man he did. That should put him back in contention for #6 d.
Eddy was really something. He was subtle but nasty. I don’t know who made contact with Wilson that had him laying on the ice. But Eddy took Wilson off his skates at least once.
It would seem that we have Wilson’s number. He went bonkers and didn’t recover, even with his 12 minute sabbatical. Another 2 minutes for roughing? Wow! Let’s keep it going. Hathaway needs to be handled. As will Gudas and Oshie. But I think we have the horses to handle them.
I liked what i saw with the Bull and Foegele. Fishy was great. Turbo was too. Nino, Marty and Slavin were great. Pesce put on a display of stickhanding par excellence.
I had fun. I must say that seeing our Haydn on a breakaway was quite something. He skates faster than Willy and Mrazek. But his shot couldn’t break through a wet Kleenex. Oh well.
Reading the posts here, I was disturbed somewhat. There are those who will not give our owner a break. Those who accused him of being cheap have had to eat their words somewhat because Tommy is spending a lot of money on players’ salaries as well as for improving the fan experience.
There are those who want us to believe that he is evil. Thank goodness, that mantra has all but stopped.
But there is one who wants us believe that Tommy is a fool who acts impulsively. She cites his spending the money on Patrick Marleau’s contract buyout in return for Toronto’s first round pick in next year’s draft.
Tommy is not a fool. He is not given to impulse. The transaction to which she refers as shooting from the hip or impulsive can be looked at from that perspective, I suppose, but only if one does not take into account the other decisions Tommy has made in his history of ownership of my beloved Canes.
But let’s take a look at the decision he made here. He spent a bit over $6 million on the buyout. Not only did he cough up the cash, but he also spent that in terms of salary cap space for this season, and this season only.
It is said that Toronto’s first round pick will be late in the round, because the conclusion is foregone that Dubas’ and Babs’ boys will win a lot of games and finish high in the standings.
I am not sure that I buy that. With all of the twists and turns the profligate fool Kyle Dubas has had to undergo in putting together his dream team, he has created a couple of big problems for Babs. With all of the big names we see among their forward corps, we also see some very big personalities. Big big big egos. Some off ice problems with bad behavior. Making these stalwart individuals play together as a team will not be fun for Babs. I daresay that it won’t be fun for the Toronto faithful either.
Wait until the boy wonder Kyle Dubas discovers that he forgot to pay for a defense corps. Oops!
We also have another big problem. Kyle was foolish enough to believe Travis Yost when he wrote that heavy hockey is dead. Boston, Washington, and others will eat them for lunch. We will eat them too.
Be all of that as it may, we needn’t worry. Tommy made a decision to spend his money, not ours. He spent it on what he considered to be a prudent risk. Many sports writers and scouts are saying that the 2020 draft will be deep enough that quality picks will be available into the second round. But the only proof of the wisdom behind Tommy’s decision will be whether the player we select with that pick is any good.
But even if we pick another Gretzky, there will be those who want us to believe as they do that Tommy is cheap, evil, and impulsive.
I guess the Bible is right, “There is none so blind as he (or she) who will not see.”
pwrlss, You are getting some adverse reactions (see below) to your comments. Look, you have expressed over time some good ideas (things I agree with) and some bad ideas (things I don’t agree with) but I have never had a problem reading them. I am sure you have experienced the same reading my trash…exquisite recitations (as have many others more than likely). Where you get a really negative reaction is when you seem to attack the ideas of others in a personal way.
As I have suggested to you in the past, I believe you would be better off expressing your ideas and views about the state of the hockey team and not spend time belittling the ideas of others. Probably, or even more than likely, none of us really know all there is to know about running a NHL hockey team, what the abilities of various players are, or why some deal was made or not made. We just have OPINIONS (ideas, guesses, etc.). I am often amazed at the good ideas and information that contributors like ctcaniac, aviddavid, lssthan, breezy, raleightj, you and ALL the others come up with. Its what makes the site so much fun to read every day. Keep writing and be as adamant as you want in your opinions and ideas (shoot…that’s what makes puckgod so much fun to read). Try to eliminate putting down (belittling)the ideas of others. You can disagree with others ideas and opinions, but just state you disagree with them, don’t belittle them.
I didn’t write this to criticize you or demean or lecture you in any way. I only wrote it because I value and want to read what you and lessthan both have to say about hockey and not personal attacks one way or the other.
If any of the readers on this site are looking for someone’s ideas (the operative adjective to insert before the word “ideas” is silly, inane, or even stupid) to pick on, I have enough of them out there to make for the shortcomings of others failure to produce sufficient rubbish for critique.
He doesn’t just belittle the ideas of others – he belittles others including others who post here; and that is/was lts’s point, I believe. And it is one I concur with – he has done that since he started posting comments on C&C under another name prior to begging Matt to delete him from this site – something Matt reluctantly agreed to do, only to reappear with an abbreviated name 4 or 5 months later. He belittles players – including jonesing on one particular individual ad nauseum – staff members, and schools of thought that differ from his. It is one thing to offer critical and differentiating thought; it is something else to personally belittle, denigrate, and insult.
I hope he will follow your advice. I have come close to leaving this blog behind me on more than one occasion because it pains me to see his words cross before my eyes. But I believe he has value to offer and hope that he will consider his choice of words more thoughtfully and considerately.
Matt, my apologies in advance. I’m not going to keep taking personal crap from this guy.
Powerless, Pwrlss, or whatever you want to call yourself, I’m going to treat you as I would if I were right in front of you. Kiss my ass. I’ve had enough of your taunts and insults. I am not a she, though there is nothing wrong with being female. I’m sure you know that, but insist on your passive-aggressive bullshit. I truly wish there were an ignore feature on this board. You would have been there months ago.
It’s your board, Matt. Boot me if you want, but I will continue to respond in kind to this garbage. It will be direct, not passive-aggressive.
This^^
I’m with you, lessthanstable.
I agree with you, lts, and if asked by the powers that be would expand upon it.
All this fuss over little ole me?
Oh my!
Ouch!
I will say this. I absolutely love Tom Dundon’s business model and mindset. I also know after so many years of agony followed by one year of success, many Canes fans are skeptical, perhaps even ‘forest through the trees’. But there is little doubt TD, Donnie, Paul and Eric have made progress. It’s a bit renegade and not perfect, but the team’s trajectory is in the right direction.
That said, if folks want to target TD’s past business practices or disagree in how he operates, I could care less because that has not been proven to effect this hockey team, not yet at least. It’s a forum for opinions, including opposing ones. Let’s just all respect that and not make it personal. Let’s see 2019-20 unfold and keep up the varying opinions.
I’m with you lessthan.
Red, As always, you are the peacemaker. Your words always have a positive impact on me. Thank you for your words.
I will take them to heart. Again, I thank you.
PS. I have moved my season ticket seats to Section 302. I will stop by to see you though.