Wanna blog? Start your own hockey blog with My HockeyBuzz. Register for free today!
 

The Justin Peters blog

November 26, 2013, 12:47 PM ET [7 Comments]
Matt Karash
Carolina Hurricanes Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
If you hate the long introductions that I sometimes include with this type of blog, just skip down to the ------- where I get to the headline stuff.

Only about 1/3 into the 2013-14 season, Carolina Hurricanes fans have been treated a number of great people stories already.

Even before the season started, we witnessed undersized but dynamic Sergey Tolchinsky enter the Canes summer prospect camp as an unheralded unsigned invitee, excel during his short time in Raleigh and ultimately win a contract to make him part of the organization. He is currently 6th in the OHL in scoring.

Also in training camp, we saw Matt Corrente help breathe life into a Canes team with a spirited effort in Montreal that saw the team turn things around, finish training camp better and head into the regular season with a positive vibe. Corrente was rewarded by making it past the next round of cuts butobviously did not make the roster. He is unlikely to see the NHL this season, but his contribution to the current season, while small, was important.

Coming out of training camp and into the regular season, Brett Bellemore earned his 1st opening night roster spot. Partly due to injuries and partly due to just being the best option (as has been proven by recent lineups with D fully healthy), Bellemore rose very quickly to strong AHL depth with limited NHL experience to NHL depth defenseman finally to every night NHL top 4. That is a huge jump and rapid ascent for a 25-year old who had worked long and hard to fulfill his dream of playing in the NHL.

Finally, we had the arguably ahead of schedule arrival of Ryan Murphy. Prior to training camp and based on his very short stint in the NHL last season as an emergency call-up, I thought he would need a couple years in the AHL to round out his game defensively before jumping to the NHL. But the Canes need for offense from the back end created an opening for Murphy to make the roster and he seized it. Ranking amongst the moments of greatest anticipation every game at PNC is that moment where Murphy gets the puck on his stick in the defensive zone with enough space to get started up the ice and fans lean forward a bit and get that “here we go” kind of feeling as he starts to fly up the ice.

It is always tricky to figure out when to write a blog like this. I wrote the original draft of my Chad LaRose tribute of sorts in June and kept waiting and waiting for him to officially be gone by virtue of signing with another team, but finally had to break down and post it in late September. It also feels strange in some ways to post a Justin Peters blog with him still in the mix in terms of playing time and the season itself very much still in progress. But for this one, I think the timing is right. While he might do more, in bridging the time period where the Canes were minus both Ward and Khudobin and keeping the team in the playoff chase, he has accomplished the challenge presented to him.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the process, Justin Peters has become the most recent in the great run of people stories so far this season. The context of his situation coming into the 2013-14 season was nothing close to favorable. He was in net for much of the Canes death spiral in 2012-13 season that saw the Canes go from 1st place in their division to a lottery a pick after Cam Ward was lost for the season to injury. He started 2-1 to provide hope only to finish the 2012-13 season 4-11-1 with a 3.46 GAA and .891 save %. Over the summer, 1 of the Canes key additions was top-tier backup Anton Khudobin. When that happened, training camp became a non-competition, and it looked very possible that 27-year old Justin Peters would never see the NHL again.

But then Anton Khudobin went down to injury on October 13 and was followed shortly thereafter by Cam Ward on October 24. At the point in which Ward was injured the Canes were off to a solid 4-2-3 start. 5 games later the Canes had collected 5 losses with Peters in net and were suddenly 4-7-3 and falling rapidly in the standings. With Ward and Khudobin still a couple weeks out in terms of availability the Canes 2013-14 was rapidly headed toward a cliff that looked painfully similar to the 2012-13 season.

Before the next game I wrote:

The next 5 games could make the deficit too big to overcome even if the team rebounds. The Canes play their next 5 games at home. If the Canes continue to sink and go say 1-4 to run the season record to 5-11-3, might the hole be too big already at 6 games under .500? In addition, the next 4 games feature 4 good teams with 3 on the road (@Bos, Bos, @Det, @StL). Even if the team plays well in those games, it is a real tough stretch to make up ground. So coming out of the 5 at home and then 4 following that, the team would suddenly be 23 games into the season, with a ton of emotional taxes paid and a big deficit in the standings to make up.

And then it happened…

With the team on his back and hanging over the cliff, Justin Peters dug his fingernails, skates and whatever else he could in and pulled the team back up over the edge over the next week. In the 5-game home stand, the team went 4-0-1. The team transitioned very quickly from trying to win in spite of Justin Peters to trying to win with Justin Peters to very simply winning because of Justin Peters. The 2013-14 defense was much sounder than the mess he played in front of during the 2012-13 collapse, but he was also incredibly good. Over the 5-game stretch, he earned the 1st star in 3 of the 4 wins and game up only 6 goals on 144 shots for an eye-popping .958 save %. The team emerged with an 8-7-4 record. The fan base let out a huge sigh of relief that the playoff hopes did not get removed from the picture in November. And the Canes were right in the middle of the tight Metro Division despite some adversity and injuries to both goalies.

I would love to have someone interview Peters at some point to hear about the mental part of it all over the rollercoaster he rode over the past 8 months having caught a break and the NHL starting job (on a fill in basis) that he had worked so hard to earn, then having it blow up on him, then seemingly being banished to the AHL only to catch another chance early in the 2013-14 season. And then even after that, looking on from the outside it was quite a rollercoaster losing 5 straight before then playing lights out for the next 5. My hunch from seeing a bit of him in interviews and such is that he is pretty easy going and that the ups and downs he experienced are less than the bumpy rollercoaster ride that fans felt. But there still had to be confidence challenges after losing 5 straight that he obviously defeated gloriously.

So if you fast forward to today, the Canes lost a couple games since the magical 4-0-1 home stand, but the team has officially bridged a long stretch of 11 games without either their starter or backup goalie. Even better, the Canes emerged still in position to win a playoff spot and not in a huge hole. With Ward’s strong play this weekend, Peters might not see NHL ice again real soon and it is hard to say where this season leads, but if the Canes do go on to make the 2014 NHL playoffs after a 4-year hiatus, Justin Peters clearly has a hand in it.

A few days back, I posted my thoughts on what to do with Peters once Khudobin returns. You can find the details HERE. But for me personally, I really hope an opportunity opens for him to jump straight to another NHL team out west. At this point, he deserves a chance to see if he can sustain what he has accomplished recently over a longer period of time. And as long as he goes West, I will cheer for him to do well.

Shorter version: A big thank you goes out to Justin Peters for an incredibly impressive run of hockey that kept the Carolina Hurricanes 2013-14 playoff hopes intact.

Twitter=@CarolinaMatt63

Go Canes!
Matt on Google+
Join the Discussion: » 7 Comments » Post New Comment
More from Matt Karash
» Maple Leafs and Hurricanes: Comparison in rebuilding strategies
» Snarly Hurricanes vs. Flyers match up set for Saturday
» Canes treading water - Will they eventually drown or swim?
» Solid first half of week tees 'make up' time at home for the weekend
» Hurricanes at Red Wings -- Canes look claw even for road trip