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Canes Taking on the Senators and A Recap from Loss to Habs

November 26, 2016, 2:22 PM ET [0 Comments]
Ben Case
Carolina Hurricanes Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT



Tonight, the Carolina Hurricanes (8-7-4) are completing their second game of three in a tour of Eastern Canada. They will be facing off against the Ottawa Senators (12-7-1) and this will mark the second time the teams have played this season. In the first match-up, the Canes dropped a 2-1 battle in OT on November 1st at the Canadian Tire Centre. The Canes are looking to even the series up and also deny Ottawa their second three-game winning streak of the year.

The previous game was Craig Anderson’s first game back with the Senators after announcing that his was battling cancer—he was exceptional the entire evening only surrendering an early goal to Jakub Slavin on a breakaway in the first minute of the game. He went on to stop 32 of 33 shots and was absolutely fantastic—he is confirmed for tonight and I would expect to see him play strong again tonight. In his last 6 starts, he is posting a 2.12 G.A.A. with a .932 save percentage and is also 6-3-1 on home ice.

The Canes looked strong the first time that they played Ottawa and out-shot them 16-5 in the first frame. After that, the Senators appeared to pick up the physical play and were able to control the Canes speed better. The Canes were out-hit 27-14—three Senator D-men (Ceci, Methot and Borowiecki) contributed 13 of those. The Canes have been playing significantly more physical and in two of their past three games have registered 30 or more hits.

The Senators got their D-men involved in the offense a lot in the first match-up. At the time, the Canes were struggling at keeping point shots that came through traffic or deflections out of the net. While they have improved, the concern on blocking shots and boxing players out is definitely an issue against the more physical teams. The Senators had 13 of their 32 shots from D-men—I would imagine we will see a lot of looks on net from Karlsson and Phaneuf again.

Coming into tonight, the Canes had their 5-game winning streak snapped on Thursday dropping a 2-1 outing to Montreal Canadiens (15-4-2). While the Canadiens snapped the Canes winning streak, it was actually probably one of the best games the Canes as a team have played all season long. Price stole the show as he stopped 32 of 33 shots and was the only reason the game was tied at one after two periods.

The Canes possess the top PK unit in the NHL and have killed 24 straight. They continue to do a very good job of playing positional hockey, while not letting guys get extra chances in front. It has become a team effort between Ward’s strong play and the PK unit performing strong too. It also helps that they are one of the least penalized teams in the NHL and are tied for first to the least amount of times going shorthanded.

The first two lines still looking very good and have created tons of chances the past few games. The best part is that guys who were not too productive in the first 10-15 games are starting to look very comfortable and confident on the ice. Two of those, Lindholm and Teravainen both are playing with a lot more enthusiasm and grit—you can see they want the puck on their sticks now when they are on the ice. Looking at Lindholm, you can see he is having fun out there which it didn’t appear he was earlier in the season. He had an absolute snipe on Price in the first period that stunned pretty much everyone, including Price.




Another fact that I think has been helping all the lines is that Coach Peters has been having guys play on different lines some practices—this has allowed the top-six forwards to be interchangeable and the bottom 6 stays consistent come game-day. Coach Peters has used this to help him chance the lines up when the offense is stagnant and we have seen him change it up for a few shifts in previous games.

On Thursday, I was impressed with the Canes second period effort—they controlled a lot of the play and scoring chances. Early on, they established a strong fore-check and created some quality chances that Price fought off. One problem was that they hit the net as they missed wide/high on some extremely high chance opportunities. Coach Peters also commented that he believed the Canes needed to create more traffic in front of the net. Overall, the second period was one of the best they have played all season long.

Ward is expected to make his ninth straight start—the big question in my book is not when his play will decrease, rather when the Canes will over-work him and he will get injured. As long as he is healthy and the D continues to play strong, I expect him to continue putting up strong starts. He made some extremely timely and acrobatic saves against the Canadiens—he was fantastic in the third.






Coming into tonight, over the last six games, 13 different guys have tallied goals. Early in the season, the Canes were struggling to get offensive production beyond their first line. In addition, guys who were kept off the score-sheet weren’t finding ways to contribute in other manners. Over the course of November, the Canes have found ways to get contributions from all 18-guys almost every night-the result has been a much more competitive and dangerous Canes team.

Canes Expected Lines:

Skinner—Staal—Aho
Teravainen—Rask—Lindholm
McGinn—Ryan—Stempniak
Nordstrom—McClement—Stalberg

Hainsey—Faulk
Slavin—Pesce
Hanifin—Tennyson

Ward





Canes Extra:

Bryan Bickell is a class act:



Kids Ask the Canes:

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