Hurricanes vs. Canadians – The Recap

The Canes come into tonight having taken their last game on the chin, losing 3-1 to the Nashville Predators, their last game against a team in the Western Conference.  Tonight, the Montreal Canadians would come into town, sitting in Wild Card 2 position – they would be playing with a level of desperation.  They want to make it into the playoffs after coming into the year, in my eyes, as a bit of a long shot.  Make no mistake, though – this team is good.

As for the game tonight – I believe that the Hurricanes need to play with the same fire and intensity they played with the last game against the Predators.  They had plenty of chances and great possession time – keep with that theme and I think it could be a notch in the W column.  Montreal was also going to be hungry, so the idea would be to play a playoff-type game.

Below are my thoughts on the game:

• Before the game, there was news that Andrii Svechnikov would be back, contributing where Tyson Jost was.  He drew in.  The rest of the lines remained the same, and Freddie Andersen was in net.
• And the first shot of the game, Josh Anderson early with the snipe - Gallagher wins a board battle, with two Canadians there along with a couple Hurricanes, Josh Anderson was right in the spot in the center of the ice, the puck was fed out to him from Gallagher and he buried it with a one timer.  Eighteen seconds in – Montreal up 1-0 (and I am hopeful this isn’t a sign of things to come).
• Not thirty seconds later, we are tied at 1 – Sebastian Aho wins a faceoff and then gets to the front of the net on the far side.   Jackson Blake was there as well on the near side – Blake taps a Jaccob Slavin offering, which bounces off a stick (Guhle) and skate (Suzuki) from the Montreal Canadians and Blake gets off the goalless streak train.   This game is knotted up at 1.
• We had to kill off two penalties tonight and we were able to do just that.  I have grown accustomed to the penalty kill just doing the job night in and night out, but I really appreciated these kills – both in the first period.  This game was back and forth early on in the first – a goal off either of these penalties were probably going to be a problem for us.
• The Sebastain Aho line (with Jackson Blake and Seth Jarvis) looked real good early on and continued building the momentum through the game.  This is a true top line – all three of them were hounds on the puck.  Jackson Blake and his stick handling with the puck is next level.  They are also so good at recovering when the puck is lost in their own end and getting to the forecheck.  They were all over it tonight, generating some amazing pressure every time they were on the ice (I’ll have more on this line later – they were just so good).
• There appeared to be some early blending of the lines, but they stayed consistent throughout the game.  Svechnikov will likely draw up at some point in the near future, but I liked the way he played with Eric Robinson and Mark Jankowski.  I caught them on the bench together talking, getting on the same page – you love to see it!
• The first period was a good first period for us – we limited their chances and had solid possession time.  Montreal had their chances, but overall, I think we played solid defensively and have slowly started to get to our game.
• Our 4^th line is overqualified at this point, given the return of Svechnikov.  I want to highlight Eric Robinson and what he does on the boards.  He works so hard to win battles.  These battles won led to chances, which he, in turn, made himself available for.  He had a couple good decent looks on several good shifts.  
• We went on the power play three times tonight – we had a 5-on-3 for a stretch in our first power play, which generated some decent looks, but nothing to show for it.  Our second power play was just an extension of the first power play.  The third power play is where we hit paydirt.  It really all starts before the power play with Sebastian Aho being an absolute forechecking animal to steal a puck in the offensive zone and fed Stankoven who found a streaking Jordan Martinook – who was tripped before he could fire a laser.  The power play started with a clean face-off win by Aho, and a nice set play with Gostisbehere at the start.  That play doesn’t work, but as the puck was being sent around the boards, Seth Jarvis goes to retrieve, finds Jackson Blake down low – he finds Taylor Hall, who delivers some top cheese, banging home a goal.  The puck movement and the movement of the players – you’re starting to see more of it.  Further, Sebastian Aho is doing much better in the face-off circle in these power play draws.  We had the puck in the zone the entire time – 2-1 good guys!
• I want to highlight the combination of Blake-Aho-Jarvis again, because their dominance when they are on the ice can’t be overlooked.  Defensively, they are only in the zone every so often – but when they are, they are relentless on the defensive end.  Aho, in this game alone, prevented a would-be goal on the goal line and all three were mucking things up (as they often do) in the neutral zone, slowing transition (and in some instances stealing the puck outright).  Jackson Blake has been stellar at getting to the front of the net to create chances, and Aho and Jarvis’s chemistry was noticeable on a goal they scored together.  It started with a great feed in the defensive end by Gostisbehere who found Jackson Blake rushing out of the zone – Blake fed the puck to Seth Jarvis, but in the process had lured over a defender from the Canadians.  This led to a 2-on-1 breakaway for Aho and Jarvis, Jarvis delivering excellent sauce to Aho who buried it.  Sebastian Aho, during that middle stretch of the 2^nd period, completely took over.  3-1 us.
• Logan Stankoven has been all over it over the last several games – he is a mini-Blake, mini-Jarvis in my eyes.  He hounds the puck and isn’t afraid to get to the front of the net.  I love the way he is playing – my hope is that he gets rewarded soon.
• Dimitri Orlov had, what I considered, his best game since the turn of the calendar.  He had one giveaway that he probably would have wanted back (Andersen made a great save to keep it 3-1) and he was shaking his head in frustration on the bench afterwards.  But overall, he had some good physicality, played sound defensively and had some chances at the net.  If this is baseline Orlov for the rest of the season, I’ll take it. 
• I’ll comment additionally on the entire defensive unit of Slavin, Burns, Chatfield, Orlov, Walker and Gostisbehere – each of them contributed in various ways this game but never got away from the defensive side of the puck.  They were also very physical (Walker, Burns and Orlov in particular), which was also awesome to see with the playoffs about three weeks out.
• Frederik Andersen looked solid after the first goal allowed.  He had some good saves in the 3^rd period when the game was still in doubt.  He also had an awesome stop right before the end of the 2^nd period that kept it 3-1 as well.  It was good to see him shake off that early one.  If Kochetkov doesn't figure something out soon, we may be back to seeing playoff Freddie again, for better or worse.

The game felt like a playoff game – and the Hurricanes came out on top.  I didn’t talk much about Svechnikov’s return, but he had a solid game playing with various combinations of lines throughout but sticking with the Robinson-Jankowski line through most of it.  It seemed right.  He did get an empty netter as this thing was wrapping up, sealing a 4-1 win for the Canes. 

We played with a good sense of urgency against a team who needed the win and were desperate.  Overall, I thought we dominated the game for much of the back half of the 1^st.  The clear tilt of the ice was in the 2^nd period, where we had loads of pressure – culminated with two goals that were a direct influence of Sebastian Aho (generating the pressure defensively to get to a power play and the third goal from the sauce from Jarvy).  If I am delivering stars, I’d give the slight edge to Sebastian Aho, because of how he took over that 2^nd period – he was the best player during that stretch, and it wasn’t particularly close.  The second star would be Jackson Blake – a 3-point effort will do that (I was thrilled he got the first star, but honestly, it would have been fair to give him the second star).  It was great to see him get off the schneid.  And Freddie Andersen would be my third star - he was good when he had to be and kept the Canadians off the scoresheet after that initial snipe.   Great effort by the boys and a solid win in the ledger.  Continue to stack points.

Next up:  The Islanders come to Lenovo Center on March 30.