One of the more telling things on Wednesday actually happened before the game even started. After logging 26:27 and 24:38 of ice time respectively on Tuesday night, NHL regulars Justin Faulk and Ron Hainsey were right back in the lineup Wednesday. The blue could very well be the opening night starters. In a preseason back-to-back at a time when the team is still carrying 15 defenseman, I think this move was incredibly telling. Though I am sure he would downplay the importance of this individual game in any formal interviews, I think it very clearly sends a message that he wanted to play to win Wednesday. After you subtract out Eric Staal, Jordan Staal and Alexander Semin who are working on injury recovery schedules (or out altogether obviously for Jordan), only Riley Nash and Patrick Dwyer of the locks at forward were out of the lineup.

I think it makes sense. For teams who had good previous seasons and are beaming with confidence, the preseason matters exactly none except getting in a little work and evaluating fringe and new players. The Blackhawks or Kings could go 0 and __, and it would have no impact on their season. But for teams coming off disappointing previous seasons, there is an element to building confidence and building new habits. Last preseason, the Canes played poorly and mostly kept talking about how it was only preseason and did not matter that much up to the point where it was blatantly obvious that it did. Adversity takes a toll over a long season. Better to not start that before game 1. And with Jordan Staal felled by injury last night, I think Peters knew that the time was now to quickly put a positive stake in the ground from which to move forward. And riding a surging power play, generally decent play and pretty good goaltending from their #3, the Canes did just that with a 4-2 win against the Isles.

Pretty much to a man, I think the Canes played a decent game, but no one really stood out individually at even strength. The suddenly sizzling power play and its 3 goals is where the heroes were made. One must be careful not to read too much into a very small sample size against preseason competition, but I think there is reason to believe that the apparent power play improvement will hold into the real games. 4 things strike me as different:

1) The team is playing with a shoot 1st mentality. Players are looking to the net 1st and puck movement options 2nd.

2) They are getting forwards to the front. Tonight Jeff Skinner's goal came on a tap in from the crease when the puck showed up and Sekera's goal came on a screen from either Tlusty or the defenseman that he brought with him.

3) We have been incredibly good at retrieving pucks. When you shoot a ton, there are going to be errant shots. The Canes are getting more than their fair share of those pucks.

4) The defensemen are playing aggressively. You can feel a couple more shorthanded chances coming (Canes game up a shorthanded goal today), but with it is a ton more offense. 3 of the Canes 5 power play goals have come from defensemen (2 for Sekera, 1 for Murphy) and not a single 1 of them has come on a blast from the point. Murphy's was a backdoor play from nearly point blank range and both of Sekera's goals saw him step down from the point into a scoring position at or even a step inside the top of the faceoff circle.

A few player by player notes:

--Brett Bellemore. Finally getting to play (not sure if he was dinged up or just scratched in 1st 2), he had a rough 2nd period taking 3 consecutive penalties and then a fighting major immediately after those when had to answer for the hit on the 3rd penalty. Hopefully this is just a game that he can just shake off and move on.

--Jeff Skinner. He had another good game offensively and has that buzz in the offensive zone. He did also fail to sort things out off the rush but recovered in time to take a tackling penalty to prevent a tap in goal. Beating a dead horse, it is the volume of those latter plays that will define if Jeff Skinner is a good scorer or a good top 6 forward.

--Ryan Murphy. I thought he had a pretty quiet game defensively in a good way. He logged shifts, did not try to do too much offensively and chipped in points on the power play along the way.

--A hint at strategy? As I stated above, based on the lineup and ice time, I think Peters very much played to win a hockey game tonight. Based on that, I think there could be some clues as to what direction he is going to go with the Jordan Staal thing. Both Rask and Lindholm played center tonight. You can see there where he is trying options to round up another center. Everyone gets that. But the other thing that jumps out at me is Jay McClement's 21:11 of ice time. That is a ton of ice time for someone who gets exactly 0:00 of the easier minutes on the power play and leads the forwards in penalty kill minutes. Last night I put forward 2 scenarios for adjusting for the absence of Jordan Staal. Both had Peters building a defensively sound 3rd line that he can put on the ice against anyone for a defensive zone draw on the road (which the Canes will see a bunch of in October) and feel like he did the best he could. Leaning heavily on McClement tonight just might be a clue the same direction that I am. I had it as Gerbe/McClement/Dwyer but there are a few other options. This still leaves room for a more scoring-capable line centered by Rask, but also affords Peters the chance to carefully pick situations and matchups for this line.

--Still adjusting to system in transition. You can see where Peters system and puck possession/forward progression go hand in hand. The Canes had some bad breakdowns in the 1st 2 games when the defensemen got up too much and the puck was suddenly going the other way and behind them. Wednesday was not as bad, but there were still a decent number of near misses. The key is for the puck to keep possession of the puck in key places. You can see where this would work real well when you have Datsyuk or Zetterberg on the ice in Detroit and a team that is years deep playing with a keep the puck on your stick until you have another stick to send it to mentality for years. I think how quickly the Canes can pick this up will be critical to their success with this system at least initially. Half dump ins that do not get deep, intercepted passes at the top of the faceoff circles and turnovers at the blue line are incredibly difficult to recover from with the gap between the forwards with the puck and the defensemen following it so small.

--Quiet night for the outsiders. With Peters shortening the bench, the trio of McGinn/Holmstrom/DiGiuseppe had a quiet night with limited ice time.

Other quick hitters.
--Justin Faulk struggled a bit, especially in the 2nd period, but he started real slow last year and was fine by opening night, so I am not sweating it.
--Andrej Sekera continues to look ready to go.
--Good for Drew MacIntyre getting his 1st win as a Cane. His team and some luck helped with rebounds, but he was generally good and 2 goals against is pretty solid obviously.
--Victor Rask>Elias Lindholm. I would not say anything was decided, but I think Rask just looks more comfortable as a center right now. They were also almost mirror images in the faceoff circle with Lindholm winning a meager 19% and Rask an impressive 73%.

Next up in terms of semi-real hockey is the red/white scrimmage on Friday at PNC Arena. This should be free, so come out and watch Canes hockey.

Twitter=@CarolinaMatt63

Go Canes!

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