It is important not to get too wrapped up in preseason results when many of the minutes are spent evaluating players and figuring things out and many of the players are soon-to-be AHLers. But when you are a team coming off a playoff miss, I think the results do matter to a degree. So coming off a lackluster loss in Columbus on Wednesday and riding a 2-game losing streak, you had to hope for better in the Canes home preseason finale.

The game went exactly according to script. If you could somehow get Anton Khudobin a start in the same game equal to Cam Ward's, I think you could say that the team did everything you could want for the last 2 games heading into the games that count.

The team as a whole played well and the Canes fans who spent their Friday night watching hockey even if it was just exhibition got their money's worth.

--Elias Lindholm had a big game notching a hat trick with a late empty-netter.
--Cam Ward was strong in net.
--Nathan Gerbe played well.
--Jeff Skinner continued to look ready to continue on his 2013-14 offensive pace.
--And so on and so on.

A few more detailed notes and a bit on the team's situation now only 1 week from the regular season opener:

1) Cam Ward. He was good as noted above. The bigger thing for though was how he was good. Some of the things that have become immediate red flags for me in terms of trying to assess where he is in terms of readiness pointed very definitively positive in this game. First, Buffalo actually did a decent job of getting some traffic in and around the crease. The struggling version of Cam Ward cannot seem to find the puck through traffic, gets regularly agitated by the bumping and people in the way and tends to find his way out of position sometimes both trying to lean into the traffic maybe looking a whistle and lean away from the traffic trying to find a sight line. He played through whatever was there today and seemed singularly focused on the puck and not concerned about the other stuff. Second, he played aggressively. Even in his good days, I would not say that his ability to make dazzling reflex saves was his strength. Cam Ward's strong suit has always been his ability to be sound positionally, play angles correctly and give the shooter as little as possible. A key part of this is having a good sense of when to be aggressive to come out and take away angles and not sitting back in net and leaving big holes (like the 1 glove high) to shoot at. Ward was the most aggressive he has been this preseason in game or scrimmage and more aggressive than I can remember in a long time. It is only 1 outing, but it could be a sign that he is starting to play the game instinctively at a higher speed that seems to be missing when he is struggling.

2) Elias Lindholm. If you go through the Canes top 9 forwards, you can pretty easily break them into 2 categories for the team to be successful. There is a group of players who have played at a high enough level recently in their career proving that they can do it, but mostly came nowhere close to it in 2013-14. This group includes EStaal, Tlusty, Semin and JStaal. So that is 4 of your top 9. Then there is a group that is being thrust into a bigger role than they have ever filled and need to grow real quickly. In this group, I count Lindholm, Rask, Skinner, Boychuk (assuming he keeps his spot) and to some degree Nash. (IMHO Skinner has proven capable of being a top 6 scorer already in his career but has yet to become a true top 6 player (that's the defense too)). So there are 5 more of your top 9. Gerbe makes 10 since JStaal is obviously on the shelf for awhile.

So I digress...Arguably the 2 players that the Canes will ask for the biggest leap from early in the 2014-15 season are fellow Swedes Victor Rask and Elias Lindholm. While Rask will not be asked to directly fill JStaal's skates, he is the new guy on the scene at the center position. And with a probable top 6 role even before JStaal's injury, the team was looking for Lindholm to transition very quickly from a talented player who just really was not there yet last year to the high-end player they drafted. So finally getting to my point, the past 2 games have featured huge outings first by Rask against Columbus and then by Lindholm tonight against Buffalo. It is reasonable to expect that consistency will not be pegged at 100% for these young players, but these outings show that the ceiling is high if they can find it often enough when the real games count. And while the preseason outcomes and scoring does not really count, in no way would I underestimate the carryover of the confidence gained from nights like these.

3) Nathan Gerbe. You have to love the guy. He just brings it every night. He was Robin to Lindholm's Batman on Friday night.

6) Offense maybe heating up at right time. After a sluggish 1st half of the preseason except for a newfound power play, things have suddenly picked up a bit. In addition to the aforementioned scoring outbursts by Rask and Lindholm, Gerbe seems to be clicking, Jeff Skinner is consistently generating scoring chances and buzzing around in the offensive zone and the power play continues to notch goals. Alexander Semin also figured in the scoring tonight on a pretty pass to set Gerbe up on a 2-on-1.

5) Chad LaRose. I guess his early boarding penalty and disqualification was 1 of very few negatives on the evening. When you watch the play a couple times, you can see where Gorges turned just a bit, and you can also imagine LaRose wanting to make an early and measurable impression in his 1st preseason game as an energy player who flies around and finishes checks. A couple years back, I went all in on supporting even the borderline calls that attempt to protect players which includes boarding situation and also the open ice hits to the head. I guess in situations like this it makes me wishy washy in that I am fine with that call because he did hammer him right in the numbers, but at the same time, I am not so vindictive. I guess the question looking forward is what happens Sunday. I would expect LaRose will get another shot if for no other reason than Peters has a couple guys dinged up and might want to rest/not risk a couple others coming off a strong outing.

Almost to a man, I think Friday's game puts the Canes in a good place. I guess my short wish list for Sunday's game if I could make 1 would be:
1-A strong outing for Khudobin.
2-An outburst by Eric Staal (I haven hunted down post-game comments to see if he will even play Sunday).

1 week until real hockey!

Twitter=@CarolinaMatt63

Go Canes!

Join the Discussion: » 10 Comments » Post New Comment

» 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