Hurricanes vs. Flames – The Recap

Tonight, the Hurricanes take on the Calgary Flames, the second of a back-to-back at home.  Last night the Hurricanes lost 3-1 to the Edmonton Oilers, the province of Canada’s other hockey team.  Before we start on the game at hand, I want to point out that the game last night against Edmonton isn’t an indictment on the team or on the system.  Far too many fans are looking at last nights loss as a theme – “the team got off to a slow start”.   Or “the system isn’t good enough to win games when trailing.” 

I said in the blog yesterday that the Hurricanes did, indeed, look a little sluggish out of the gate, but that, to me, wasn’t what cost them.   The Oilers and their desperation played a role in how they defended us, which ultimately ended up being passes that were turned over.  We, too, played solid defense throughout and both goaltenders played well.  I would note that our game featured a more east-west passing attack instead of a more north-south approach, which contributed to the issues. 

Tonight, I would like to see the Hurricanes get to a solid forecheck, play a north-south game and win more of the 50/50 pucks – in other words, play like you did in the 3^rd period last night. 

Below are my thoughts on the game:

• The lines and defensive combinations remained the same except one small tweak: Kotkaniemi would center Hall and Blake and Jost would center Robinson and Roslovic.  I like this shift, as this should be viewed as a reward for the effort KK has shown over the last several games.  Pyotr Kochetkov was in net.
• Over the course of the game, we had 6 different opportunities on the power play.  Each power play seemed to generate some opportunity but came up empty overall.  Tonight seemed to have some good puck movement and crisp passing and, above all else, face off wins – in fact, from a special team's perspective in general it looked as though we were winning far more faceoffs than we were losing, which was allowing us to set up in the zone and try to attack. 
• A note for the fans – do better.  There are a couple things I want to address.  First, booing the opposition for being injured late in the 3^rd period when he took a slapshot off the dome – that’s just dumb.  Second, the “refs you suck” chants during the game when something happens that you think is a penalty – just stop.  You’re showing the league that you, in fact, don’t know what you’re watching.  Just because a player with speed comes in and wipes out doesn’t mean there was a penalty.  Finally, I saw some commentary after the game, which was complaining about missing the net when shooting, and then also shooting the puck right in the goalie’s chest.  So, which is it?  I assume you want them to go in the net – we all do!  The players are offering different looks to the goalie - trying for corners that are just wide of the mark or sending it to the goalie as he's parked between the pipes to get a puck through the five hole or the arm/body area.  So please, do better – you’re making all of us look bad.
• The first period was a clear domination in the game – the score was 0-0 after one, but we outshot the Flames 12-1 and had a ton of zone time and puck possession.  I loved the start of this one.  Over the last three games, I think we have had some good stretches of hockey – this was, in my eyes, a continuation of the night before.
• Oh, and another thing “fans” – we did not score a goal in that first period – I get it.  But to say that it was wasted opportunity is kind of ridiculous.  Dustin Wolf played a fine first period for them, so give him credit.  But also – just because it doesn’t show up on the scoreboard in the first period doesn’t mean it won’t show up on the scoreboard in the 3^rd period.  The fact is, while they are chasing us down to defend, we are wearing them down.  They came off a game the previous night in Florida, so their legs are going to likely be feeling it a little.  All that to say, stop looking at a tree and see the whole forest – you know what we try to do yet continue to pound on the staff to ‘change the system’.  That, to me, is foolish – with 20 games to go, let’s scrap everything we are doing and do something different.  Insanity.  Your suggestions are not solutions. 
• Defensively, we looked very wise to what the Flames were trying to do – especially in the first period.  It wasn’t anything special or overly complicated defensively, just steady defense.
• I can already see I am going to love the Jackson Blake – Jesperi Kotkaniemi – Taylor Hall line.  Kotkaniemi has been playing some sound hockey over the last several games, so it is nice to see him be on a line with that sort of skill.  Early on, Taylor Hall made a nifty move off the boards to take a puck out of his own end and break out with KK on a 2-on-1, which turned into a drawn penalty.  All of it starts with a great back check from Jackson Blake in the defensive end.  Opportunities are what is needed, and we are getting them. 
• More on the Blake – KK – Hall line – this line can be (and likely will be) a great line to bump up against a penalty kill.  They can create, they can all forecheck, all of them can skate and they are also mindful defensively.  Offensively, they are a solid grouping that will generate chances.  I really like this line combination.  I can’t imagine this line gets blended up, but Rod can be Rod sometimes (can you sense the foreshadowing oozing from the words...)
• The game started with Svechnikov playing with Aho and Rantanen – this line combination seemed to be working and generating opportunities.  You could see the chemistry that has formed between Svech and Mikko over the last couple games and it was on display on another one of our power plays.  They were starting to know where each other was.  Why Rod decided midway through the 2^nd to move Jarvis to that line and move Svechnikov down with Staal and Martinook is beyond me.  I asked for consistency in the lines – we got it for 2 games – the Buffalo game and the Edmonton game.  Maybe we stay consistent with THIS iteration of players.
• Mikko Rantanen is an excellent puck retriever on the power play – there were so many times when that puck looked like it was going to be poked out of the zone, only for Mikko to beat a guy to the spot and keep it in our end.  It’s plays like that that could ultimately get us out of our funk on the power play.  We still need to find the back of the net, but this is something you can build on.  Because of this, our top unit could stay on the ice for most of the two-minute man advantage. 
• Pyotr Kochetkov saw a grand total of 16 shots in the game and stopped all but one.  He was good when he had to be and anticipated well (a penalty kill in particular where he saved two in succession was a highlight of this), but again, I have to credit the collective unit for doing some heavy lifting in this one.
• For as dominant as we were in the 1^st period, Calgary stepped up the pressure in the 2^nd period, generating great looks and dominating zone time and puck possession.  After a commercial break at around the 10-minute mark of the 2^nd period, we started to reassert ourselves.  Who knows exactly why we decided now was the time to reengage, but this was also around the time Rod made the Svechnikov/Jarvis switch – even though that Svech-Aho-Mikko line had a great shift prior to this move with Rantanen feeding Aho for a grade-A out front – Wolf made the save to keep it scoreless, but it just didn’t click for me why Rod decided to change those two lines.
• More on that – we seemed to figure something out below the goal line and behind the net – we had a couple of solid chances from point blank range off of feeds behind the net – Aho (just mentioned) and others were giving this a try to bury it.
• We finally broke the ice with 34 seconds left in the period.  It starts with Taylor Hall, who put Kadri in the boards to force a turnover – Slavin took the puck down ice and fed it over to Blake, who recognized that Slavin was staying with it with speed, and Blake redistributed back over to Slavin for the goal.  1-0 good guys.  This line of Blake-KK-Hall has been dynamite all night.  Kadri didn’t like the hit he received by Hall and chirped enough to draw a 2-minute Unsportsmanlike Conduct penalty.  It wouldn’t matter, though as we couldn’t capitalize.
• It took until the middle of the 3^rd to start seeing some chance generation by the Rantanen-Aho-Jarvis combination.  They had some solid opportunities and started to gel a little.  I know that Rod wants to find the right grouping of players to start to move the needle in terms of overall goal production, but I don’t think this move is it.  Getting your best three on a line makes sense, but Svechnikov and Rantanen were really starting to generate something while on the ice.  Time will tell if we see that combination again aside from the power play.
• The story of the game, in my eyes, was the Blake-Kotkaniemi-Hall line – those dudes were out there buzzing, creating all sorts of chances and being a menace when the Flames had the puck, backchecking and pick pocketing almost at will.  Additionally, they were playing hard along the boards, securing pucks down low on the forecheck and taking away any space that the Flames had to clear.  Just a great showing by those three.
• The Flames were eventually able to tie the game at 1 with a shot from Nazem Kadri, who got one to squeak through the arm and body of Pyotr Kochetkov.  Would PK want that one back?  Probably – he was playing well and had a shutout on the line.  That said, it was a power play goal (literally a second after a 5-on-3 wrapped up) and Kadri found an opening.  Credit where credit is due.
• Orlov and Burns have been the ire or my wrath lately, but overall, they did a pretty solid job defensively.  Orlov was also firing at will it seemed but only got credited with two SOG.  Burns, to his credit, has now had three solid outings in a row – something to build on.  He also only played a shade under 19 minutes (likely due to the amount of power plays we had – being a part of the 2^nd unit, he maybe saw 2 minutes' worth of action on the man advantage).  This is probably how many minutes he should be playing a night.
• With about 4 minutes to go, Martinook took a high stick to the face from Blake Coleman and was clearly in some pain.  For whatever reason, Joel Hanley pushes Martinook over after the whistle had sounded, which one Andrii Svechnikov did not like at all.  They threw gloves, solid punches were thrown both ways, nobody went down.  Five for fighting.  Coleman gets a double minor, which would take us close to the end of the game – would love to see us bury one…but as you have probably already read – we didn’t. 

The game went to overtime and with 3:52 left in OT, we thought the game might be over – but, alas, the whistle blew prior to the puck sliding through the five hole and it was ruled the puck was covered.  Sebastian Aho would have been the beneficiary.  Instead, with 2:44 left in OT, Aho ended up calling game on a nifty feed from Jaccob Slavin and he punched it home over the blocker side.  2-1 good guys in overtime.  We had excellent puck possession in OT – they only really had one instance where they had possession.

Overall, I thought we played a solid defensive game and did what we had to do to win it in OT.  To go 0-6 on the power play against a unit that is only 73.9% on the kill – that’s a little frustrating.  We generated some chances, but we have to get our confidence back.  Put a slash in the win column, though – we’ll take it. 

Next up:  On the road with the dads to take on the Detroit Red Wings (bonus – podcast friend and Red Wings fan Brian James will be joining the podcast live in the 3^rd period to discuss the game, the Eastern Conference and the upcoming trade deadline.  See you all there).