After an early round of good Olympic news that saw Justin Faulk make Team USA, the news was not good from a Canes perspective today. The earliest news today was also good, as Tuomo Ruutu was selected to play for Finland. Andrej Sekera was also named to play for Slovakia as expected. But that is where the good news ends. Jeff Skinner and Anton Khudobin, who would have been surprises, did not make the Olympics. Eric Staal who played on the gold medal-winning Canadian team in 2010 lost out to the volume of capable players that Canada has at its disposal. And probably most surprisingly, Alexander Semin was left off of Russia’s team. I do not follow international hockey as closely as the Canes, but the Russian team looked to be heavier on KHL players than I might have guessed. I will be curious to read the expert analysis over the next few days to see if anyone pegs this as a KHL vs. NHL thing or if it was just a function of Semin’s mediocre 1st half of the 2013-14 season.
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Back to matters at hand – the chase for a spot in the 2014 NHL playoffs.
Already past the midway point in the season, the Carolina Hurricanes management will finally get an opportunity to hand deliver the thank you card to the Buffalo Sabres organization (and the actual people involved if any can even be hunted down at this point) for its help building the 2013-14 Hurricanes roster that is right in the mix to make the playoffs.
First, Buffalo was kind enough to trade Andrej Sekera to the Canes for Jamie McBain who seemed to be on the way out one way or another after the 2012-13 season and required only a 2nd round pick to even up the deal. Sekera is playing solid hockey in the Canes #1 D pairing and makes an incredibly strong case for team MVP at the midway point of the season. (Off the top of my head, I think I would put Skinner 1st and Sekera the runner up.) In addition to being sound defensively, Sekera is tied 7th in the entire league amongst defensemen for goals scored and 15th for overall scoring.
Then as if that was not enough, the Sabres bought out Nathan Gerbe making him a free agent. If my math is right, Buffalo is actually paying Gerbe more (about $600k which is 1/3 of the $1.85M on his bought out contract) for the 2013-14 season (spread over 2 years) than the Canes. Thanks for that Buffalo. Playing instead in Canes uniform, Gerbe has cemented himself as a 2nd line player bringing consistent energy, 2-way play and enough offense. He is currently on target for just under 20 goals and 40 points over an 82-game season.
Certainly Canes GM Jim Rutherford will have the decency to take Buffalo’s management, former management or someone out for a nice dinner to thank them for the help and of course to slyly see who else might be available to help the Canes chase the playoffs while Buffalo ponders who they will take with its high draft pick next summer.
As for what happens on the ice Tuesday night, the Canes need to stay hungry and continue to play like they want to win, not like they expect to win. The volume of players now practicing (Harrison, Tlusty, Nash, Lindholm as soon as he returns from Europe) is growing, but the lineup for tonight is expected to be the same as Sunday. From the Sabres’ side, the Canes are a bit unfortunate in that they are not catching the October/early November Sabres team that was just horrible and could beat almost no one. The Sabres have righted the ship, are a solid 5-3-2 in their last 10 and are riding Ryan Miller’s Olympic preparation to better hockey. Miller has won 6 straight at home dating all the way back to his last home loss on December 5.
But this is still a winnable game against a below average hockey team. As I said above, the key is for the Canes to show up determined to win not expecting to win. With that, my keys to the game are:
1) Quality not quantity. Miller is playing well and will do well against any volume of low-percentage shots that he sees. The key for the Canes is to get control of the puck in the offensive zone with time to get people to the net in advance of the puck be it on the power play or at even strength.
2) Patience. I would be pleased to be wrong, but this game does not set up as the kind of game in which the better team just easily and quickly rolls to a big advantage and something like a 4-1 or 5-2 win. Rather, the Canes need to play this game similar to the Nashville game playing sound 2-way hockey, being patient and not gambling for quick offense and be opportunistic when they get a couple chances.
3) 2nd act of solid depth. Kirk Muller got a number of solid minutes from his reworked bottom 6 in Sunday’s win. The 4th-line (Boychuk/Sutter/Palushaj) played a solid puck possession/forechecking game that saw them play most of their shifts in the offensive zone and earn about 10 minutes of ice time. At home, Muller had some ability to pick matchups for this line. On the road, they will likely see a little bit less ice time but also are likely to get caught on the ice for a few more less desirable matchups. The key is for the Canes depth lines to play well again, breakeven and leave the ball on the tee for the Canes top-end scoring talent which is better than Buffalo’s to decide the game.
This game could also be an interesting test of the Canes team toughness. When the Canes last played the Sabres in preseason, Kevin Westgarth was top policeman. He is gone. In addition, if the expected lineup holds none of Tim Gleason (obviously since he is gone), Jay Harrison or Mike Komisarek will be in the lineup to push back against the Sabres version of nasty that even felt the need to add Zenon Konopka to the mix. If you work through the Canes lineup looking for someone to take the gloves off if needed, Sutter does a bit of this but is not in the heavyweight category and the 2nd best option is probably either Justin Faulk or Manny Malhotra.
Key for the Canes in this regard is twofold:
1) Focus primarily on the task at hand which is to collect 2 points in the standings. If Buffalo wants to flex muscle and offer up a few extra power plays, the Canes should mostly just take them.
2) Travel in packs. It is not in the Canes best interest to get into a battle of macho and take on fights that make no sense. The best way to do this is to stick together after the whistles and make sure that the group supports Andrej Sekera and Nathan Gerbe if any former teammates have some bone to pick.
With a win, the Canes would move back into a playoff spot passing Washington who is idle and depending on the outcome of the Flyers game could actually jump to 2nd place with a win and a Flyers loss.
The Canes are better than the Sabres this year, but that will not be enough. It is about not letting a win streak create complacency and expectations that reduce desire/effort.
Twitter=@CarolinaMatt63
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