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Carolina Hurricanes Blogger •
For me the most fitting memory from Wednesday night's 5-2 Canes loss at home to the St. Louis Blues occurred near the end of the 2nd period. The Canes, led by 4th-liners Stephane Yelle and Tom Kostopoulos the (best shift of the night about 14 minutes into the 2nd period) had just mounted a sustained attack and 3-4 minutes of real good hockey and earned a power play at the end of it. Though the power play was actually very good for the night, this power play when the Canes were down 4-1 and needed a goal to pull within 2 for the 3rd period was utterly horrible - horrible to the point where it was deservedly booed.
And whoever does the sound and such for the Canes had a complete brilliance and breaks the sound into Elvis' 'Suspicious Minds.' Absolutely nothing could have been more perfect for a die-hard Canes fan...
We're caught in a trap
I can't walk out
Because I love you too much baby
Why can't you see
What you're doing to me
.............................
Brilliance I tell you.
As for the game, well...uhhhhh...it stunk.
The team actually jumped out of the gate pretty well and got the better of play early, but in its fragile state, it seemed to take little more than the 1st goal to send the team into the spiral down. The short version is that the Canes killed themselves Wednesday with too many of the horrible variety of mistakes.
---We had Aaron Ward mostly in the right place but stuck in cement as Berglund walked off the boards toward him and then mostly watching as the guy next to him banged in an easy rebound goal.
---We had Jay Harrison turning over the puck at the top of the circle for a goal.
---We had Aaron Ward failing to take away the pass on a breakaway leaving Cam Ward to try unsuccessfully to play the shot and the pass against 2 very good players.
---And there were other mental 'oopses' that failed to find their way behind Cam Ward.
I guess the upside to this loss if you want to try hard enough to find them is that the Canes created a decent number of scoring chances but just could not finish enough, and despite running hot and very cold at times, the power play was very productive with 2 goals in 6 tries plus a bunch of offensive zone time and improved puck movement. But moral victories only go so far when you are winless with only 3 points in your last 7 games.
A few quick player notes:
1) Matt Cullen. He continues to rise above the mess. He had another solid hockey game today getting off a couple decent shots and setting up some very good chances for linemates Rod Brind'Amour and Scott Walker. It was only lack of finishing by his wings (Walker's goal came on the power play not during a shift with that line) that kept him from being in the 3 stars.
2) Kostopoulos and Yelle. Those 2 played great on Wednesday. It was no accident that they were 2 of only 3 (Walker being the 3rd and not counting Conboy who played on 1 shift) who were not minus on the night. Playing with Samsonov some late and others early, they were effective on the cycle, getting and keeping the puck in the offensive zone and just hounding the puck like they really wanted it.
The team gets better when the guys playing 20 minutes a night want the puck that bad.
3) Brandon Sutter. This is an observation not a criticism. The point is not at all to pin the team's troubles on the kid who has only been up for a couple games. A next step in his development offensively is to become better at working his skates and stick to create angles for passing and shooting lanes. Too often with the puck on his stick, he goes straight lines and gets rid of the puck (shot or pass) from a predictable place/angle and hits a bunch of sticks or shin pads right now. He is a heady kid. He'll get it.
4) Joni Pitkanen. He needs to shoot the puck more on the power play. His first instinct and best skill is to pass the puck. That is fine. But if he does not look to shoot more, defenders will continue to sag back and concentrate on closing up passing lanes whenever the puck is on his stick. Most telling was the 3rd period power play where he kept trying to set up Whitney to shoot without even looking to see if he had a shooting lane.
He logged another big 30:31 tonight. Something like 25ish minutes per game is probably a reasonable target to have him fresh in March. Lately he has been more like 29 a night which runs the risk of skating him into the ground.
A few quick snippets from the post-game and locker room:
As is usually the case after a bad loss, interviewees are hard to find for the poor working media that have to get a story with quotes in by a deadline, but the couple guys they could track down were very consistent.
Both Chad Larose and Nic Wallin were on the same page talking about "sticking together as a team" and "pulling themselves out of it as a team." We are at 1 of those times where having quality people not just quality hockey players makes a huge difference. Were Cam Ward a primadonna type, he could easily be throwing the team under the bus right about now. Were Rod BrindAmour the manipulative, media-attention wanting version of captain, he could be calling out the guys who were supposed to be scoring more. And so on and so on. Instead, you have a bunch of guys who are very frustrated right now, but not quitting on each other. When your confidence it low it is hard to say if/when it will help turn the tide, but it does keep the team chemistry damage to a minimum and provides stamina for the 82-game grind that invariably sees stretches like this one.
I jotted down 2 quotes from Coach Maurice's press conference:
"It starts with our best guys." (in talking about the need to work hard)
In talking about why he left Cam Ward in for the 3rd period: "I thought they deserved to be out there together tonight." There is that team thing again.
Next comes 2 pretty good hockey teams in a weird matinee back-to-back. Worst case is 2 more losses and 9 straight without a win. Does that push the problem to GM Jim Rutherford's level much earlier in the season than any of us could have ever imagined?
Please hockey gods..."Don't Be Cruel."
Go Canes!
And whoever does the sound and such for the Canes had a complete brilliance and breaks the sound into Elvis' 'Suspicious Minds.' Absolutely nothing could have been more perfect for a die-hard Canes fan...
We're caught in a trap
I can't walk out
Because I love you too much baby
Why can't you see
What you're doing to me
.............................
Brilliance I tell you.
As for the game, well...uhhhhh...it stunk.
The team actually jumped out of the gate pretty well and got the better of play early, but in its fragile state, it seemed to take little more than the 1st goal to send the team into the spiral down. The short version is that the Canes killed themselves Wednesday with too many of the horrible variety of mistakes.
---We had Aaron Ward mostly in the right place but stuck in cement as Berglund walked off the boards toward him and then mostly watching as the guy next to him banged in an easy rebound goal.
---We had Jay Harrison turning over the puck at the top of the circle for a goal.
---We had Aaron Ward failing to take away the pass on a breakaway leaving Cam Ward to try unsuccessfully to play the shot and the pass against 2 very good players.
---And there were other mental 'oopses' that failed to find their way behind Cam Ward.
I guess the upside to this loss if you want to try hard enough to find them is that the Canes created a decent number of scoring chances but just could not finish enough, and despite running hot and very cold at times, the power play was very productive with 2 goals in 6 tries plus a bunch of offensive zone time and improved puck movement. But moral victories only go so far when you are winless with only 3 points in your last 7 games.
A few quick player notes:
1) Matt Cullen. He continues to rise above the mess. He had another solid hockey game today getting off a couple decent shots and setting up some very good chances for linemates Rod Brind'Amour and Scott Walker. It was only lack of finishing by his wings (Walker's goal came on the power play not during a shift with that line) that kept him from being in the 3 stars.
2) Kostopoulos and Yelle. Those 2 played great on Wednesday. It was no accident that they were 2 of only 3 (Walker being the 3rd and not counting Conboy who played on 1 shift) who were not minus on the night. Playing with Samsonov some late and others early, they were effective on the cycle, getting and keeping the puck in the offensive zone and just hounding the puck like they really wanted it.
The team gets better when the guys playing 20 minutes a night want the puck that bad.
3) Brandon Sutter. This is an observation not a criticism. The point is not at all to pin the team's troubles on the kid who has only been up for a couple games. A next step in his development offensively is to become better at working his skates and stick to create angles for passing and shooting lanes. Too often with the puck on his stick, he goes straight lines and gets rid of the puck (shot or pass) from a predictable place/angle and hits a bunch of sticks or shin pads right now. He is a heady kid. He'll get it.
4) Joni Pitkanen. He needs to shoot the puck more on the power play. His first instinct and best skill is to pass the puck. That is fine. But if he does not look to shoot more, defenders will continue to sag back and concentrate on closing up passing lanes whenever the puck is on his stick. Most telling was the 3rd period power play where he kept trying to set up Whitney to shoot without even looking to see if he had a shooting lane.
He logged another big 30:31 tonight. Something like 25ish minutes per game is probably a reasonable target to have him fresh in March. Lately he has been more like 29 a night which runs the risk of skating him into the ground.
A few quick snippets from the post-game and locker room:
As is usually the case after a bad loss, interviewees are hard to find for the poor working media that have to get a story with quotes in by a deadline, but the couple guys they could track down were very consistent.
Both Chad Larose and Nic Wallin were on the same page talking about "sticking together as a team" and "pulling themselves out of it as a team." We are at 1 of those times where having quality people not just quality hockey players makes a huge difference. Were Cam Ward a primadonna type, he could easily be throwing the team under the bus right about now. Were Rod BrindAmour the manipulative, media-attention wanting version of captain, he could be calling out the guys who were supposed to be scoring more. And so on and so on. Instead, you have a bunch of guys who are very frustrated right now, but not quitting on each other. When your confidence it low it is hard to say if/when it will help turn the tide, but it does keep the team chemistry damage to a minimum and provides stamina for the 82-game grind that invariably sees stretches like this one.
I jotted down 2 quotes from Coach Maurice's press conference:
"It starts with our best guys." (in talking about the need to work hard)
In talking about why he left Cam Ward in for the 3rd period: "I thought they deserved to be out there together tonight." There is that team thing again.
Next comes 2 pretty good hockey teams in a weird matinee back-to-back. Worst case is 2 more losses and 9 straight without a win. Does that push the problem to GM Jim Rutherford's level much earlier in the season than any of us could have ever imagined?
Please hockey gods..."Don't Be Cruel."
Go Canes!
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