Hurricanes vs. Bruins – The Recap

With the trade deadline looming and the rumor mill swirling, the Carolina Hurricanes still had work to do.  Riding a two-game win streak, the Canes had to take on the visiting (and ailing) Boston Bruins.  The Bruins came into the game without captain Brad Marchand and Charlie McAvoy, but the Bruins always come with plenty of energy and, like the Red Wings and Flames before them, were tickling the fringes of a playoff push.

The goal tonight is simple – get the win and don’t let the distractions and things you can’t control get to you.  The team that you are playing against is dealing with the same sort of distractions.  Additionally, I’d really like to see some success on the power play.  Finally, I really want to continue the full unit defensive approach in our own end. 

Before I begin, I do want to note that I watched this game on delay, not finishing the game until 1:30 A.M. that night.  Afterwards, the rumor mill was running rampant with trade speculation.  I will get to that piece briefly at the end of this blog post.  With that, below are my thoughts on the game:

• Pyotr Kochetkov is in net for us tonight, keeping with the "every other game" scenario that Rod has been deploying when both Pyotr and Freddie are healthy.  The line combinations are the same (for the third start in a row), but Riley Stillman drew in for an injured Dimitri Orlov.  The injury isn’t considered to be major – perhaps it’s his ego that is hurt. 
• The plan was for Stillman to pair with Gostisbehere and Walker to play with Chatfield.  But about a minute in, Riley Stillman delivers a solid hit on the boards, only for the player to fall over and slice Stillman in the face with his skate – he was held out as a precautionary measure for the rest of the night – we played the rest of the game with five defensemen.
• We struck first, going to the power play when Svechnikov drew a penalty on Brandon Carlo for tripping.  Sadly, instead of drawing first blood, we give up a 2-on-1 shorthanded opportunity and a good bit of puck possession time. We couldn’t get any sustained pressure, and we finished the power play empty handed.
• A few minutes later, Mikko Rantanen is called on a hooking penalty.  It was a rush killer for us, as we had some momentum going into their end with possession and Mikko gets a little lazy with his stick.  To the kill we go…
• And it’s1-0 good guys on a short-handed goal by Sebastian Aho.  He had great pressure at the blue line, won a puck race with good pace to the puck and beat Korpisalo with a back hand.  Such a great goal to get on the board.    This is what I don’t understand – such urgency with the kill and nothing on the power play.   I noted (jokingly) that we should consider offering the other team a power play when we get the man advantage. 
• Mikko Rantanen, you could tell, had a lot on his mind during the game.  He had some decent chances, but he was also trying to stay out of harm’s way too.  He got better in the 3^rd period, but the first two periods were kind of average. 
• A follow up note on Mikko Rantanen – I say we shouldn’t move him unless we are definitive that he won’t sign here and that we can get a deal that is too good not to take.  Our top nine is solid with him as a centerpiece in this system – but he does have to want it too.  So conflicted watching this game, not knowing the outcome of his future.
• We are back to Andrii Svechnikov penalty season again – this time, he takes a tripping penalty in his own offensive zone.  We kill it off – still 1-0 good guys.
• Pyotr Kochetkov, to his credit, was laser focused.  He was steady when he had to be and made some great saves to keep us afloat (against David Pastrnak no less).  With all the distractions the team was dealing with prior to the deadline, it was good to see one person who was dialed in.
• For what it’s worth, the first period 4^th line looked good, generating some good zone time against presumably the Bruins 4^th line.  Good pressure, no goals.
• Former Carolina Hurricane Morgan Geekie makes it 1-1 – it starts when we iced the puck a couple times and had to stay on the ice for a bit longer than we’d like – the Bruins pressure, eventually they got a shot off, which rebounds off of the pad of Kochetkov and to Geekie, who buries it top shelf.  Good, sustained pressure by them – and it’s a bit of a crusher since we were so close to the end of the period.
• Early goings in the 2^nd, Brent Burns gets a lucky bounce to bury his 5^th goal of the season.  And guess what line was out there with him…Blake-Kotkaniemi-Hall (the latter two with the assists).  Burns picked an excellent time to pinch – it all starts with Taylor Hall who brought the puck below the goal line around the net and fed it to Kotkaniemi who was up near the half wall area – he found Burns streaking in on the opposite side of the rink and Brent gets the puck luck off the skate of Witherspoon.  It’s 2-1 good guys.
• We head back to the power play.  I would love to see us get some separation on the scoreboard with these chances.  The things I saw:
• Power move by Svech for a stuff chance.
• A good chance for Jackson Blake that just missed
• Shayne Gostisbehere broke up a 2-on-1 opportunity for the Bruins
• No real net front
• Not a lot of pace with the passes
• As you can guess, that power play ended empty handed – the second time tonight.  We head to another power play later in the period, with Aho drawing a penalty.  The things I saw on that power play:
• We lost draws in the offensive zone.  That was a theme most of the night – they dominated us in the faceoff circle.
• Shayne Gostisbehere broke up a 2-on-1 opportunity for the Bruins (notice a theme -that’s the third time tonight we gave up a 2-on-1 on the power play)
• Slow puck movement
• No real net front
• Not a lot of pace with the passes.
• Rod sensed a lot of things off with the group, so he brought out the blender again and mixed things up.  Initially it was Robinson for Svechnikov, then I saw Roslovic out there with Staal and I was like – uh, oh.  Rod ain’t happy.  They didn’t feel like partial line changes and certainly didn’t feel like it was because of added minutes for the power play.  Either way, he moved people around.  The results were the same, though – a tired, distracted, flat group that was getting out worked and out-chanced (23-13 shots on goal).  Credit to Boston for getting up for this game.  Still up 2-1 us after the 2^nd period, but man this one looks ugly.
• The third period started with more energy – Rod put the lines back together and the boys responded playing a little more urgent and with better pace.  That said, we ended up surrendering a second goal to Morgan Geekie – it was started off a shot by Pastrnak that was saved, but Geekie worked through Staal, Burns and Svechnikov to find the puck and bury it right around Kochetkov.  I appreciate the work ethic there.  All knotted up a 2.
• The Rantanen-Aho-Jarvis line played very well in the 3^rd period, generating good chances (a couple Grade-A looks by Mikko).  Additionally, they were all mindful of the details, forcing turnovers in the neutral zone and having just enough jump to force the issue a little bit in the neutral zone (one such time forcing an icing).
• With 3:30 left, Rod decided to swap Kotkaniemi with Roslovic and allow Ros to center those two.  It confuses me, as Kotkaniemi wasn’t bad tonight – the whole team was playing kind of pedestrian, KK got the short end of the stick.  That said, with Hall buried one with 1:42 left that was ultimately waived off because of an offsides on Jack Roslovic.  It was the right call.
• Pyotr Kochetkov made another dynamite save with a minute left, 32 in total on the night, to keep this one tied at 2.  He’s been very good between the pipes.
• Sean Walker has quietly become Mr. Reliable for the Hurricanes defensive corps.  He had some good physicality and played very soundly defensively.  I’d love seeing him paired with Slavin late in games when we are tied or are ahead by 1.
• We finally wrapped this one up with 18.6 seconds left – it started with Seth Jarvis doing Seth Jarvis things, being a hound on the puck in the neutral zone.  The puck gets sent back by the Bruins to Zadorov, who tries to send the puck up ice and his stick shatters – Seth Jarvis is right there to retrieve it and, wasting no time, sends it top shelf.   3-2 us.  Great individual play by Seth there and a tough break for Zadorov – can’t anticipate a stick shatter there. 

As I mentioned, I watched this one late, keeping my phone away from me other than writing notes on the game.  Something I noticed as they headed to the locker room when they wrapped up – Mikko went into the locker room with the rest of the squad, not waiting until the end of the line with Slavin.  If you recall, a few games ago, he stayed out with Slavin to offer tail taps prior to his entry into the locker room with Slavin.  This felt like some foreshadowing for me. 

By the time I shut the TV off and looked online, the rumor mill had all but sent Mikko to Dallas.  While it wasn’t formalized, you got the sense that something was going to be done heading into the deadline.  I’ll have my thoughts on that in another blog post. 

In the end, we’ve had some games where we played well where we didn’t get the win – this one was one you could drop in the opposite ledger – we didn’t play great and ended up getting the win.  I’ll take it.  A three game “winning streak” – yay!

Next up: A date at home with the Winnipeg Jets.