The suddenly tight-checking Carolina Hurricanes let a point or 2 slip away tonight. The team and the coach will defend Cam Ward and point to the entire bench. There is some validity to this as the team was only fair on Saturday and got slightly less than fair results. But at the end of the day, they were within about 4 minutes of salvaging a point at a minimum when Cam Ward was beaten for a soft goal late. Despite good play around it, this marks the 2nd time this week that Ward was beaten short side for a soft goal in a tight game that ultimately led to 1 less point in the standings. (The other was Kovalev’s goal on Tuesday that led to an overtime loss that could arguably have been a regulation win minus Kovalev’s goal.) The 5-4 Canes of recent years made for a long list on the scoring sheet that sometimes left room to hide a bad goal here or there. The “week of October 27” Carolina Hurricanes that emerged from the bizarre Islanders win last Saturday is playing a tighter low-scoring brand of hockey. Though the defense was a little bit looser against Edmonton (especially early when they gave up handfuls of quality chances), for the week the defense was incredibly stingy making 2-1 wins possible and giving its goalie a very fair chance to win a hockey game just by being sound not necessarily spectacular. Though there were obviously many other factors and plays, the soft goal that Ward gave up was the single biggest play of the hockey game.

A few notes:

1) Other than that. Aside from the late goal, I thought Ward was very good Saturday. The team asked St. Louis shutout. And Ward was up to the task. The saves he made on the Moreau breakaway and rebound attempt early and kept the Canes from digging an early hole. He also made 2-3 other keys saves on chances in close. So overall, Ward’s game was solid on Saturday.

2) Special teams the difference. Specials teams are often the difference in tight games. You could make a strong argument that they were the difference today. The Canes managed an 0 for 6 against Edmonton’s 1 for 3. The penalty killing unit stepped up to keep the team in the game late killing 0:38 of 5 on 3 and the remainder of the 5 on 4. Any kind of decent night on the powerplay even just 1 for 6 is worth at least 1 and maybe 2 points today. They need to get better. The best we saw today was the simply ugly version where Ryan Bayda parked himself in front of the net and the team worked to get a blast from either Corvo or Cullen up top without a whole lot of fancy stick work in the middle.

3) Trust is earned not given. Melichar registered another meager time on ice total of 4:57. He has yet to earn enough trust from Coach Laviolette to let him play with 6 defensemen. He was caught terribly out of position overplaying the puck side of the ice (which was the right side manned by his partner) leaving an Oiler wide open in front of Ward in the 1st period. He was also 1 of the defenders who Hemsky split on his beautiful pass for the Oilers powerplay goal. After that, Laviolette mostly went with 5 defenders.

4) #26. If you missed it, take a look at my Erik Cole memory blog earlier today. How could you not help watching #26 in white? He had a decent Erik Cole kind of game. He was physical. He drew a penalty that led to a goal with a pure power move to the net. And he tried (unsuccessfully) a patented Cole move from the top of the right circle back left across the front of the net.

Personally, I think McTavish has Cole miscast. In the early going, the Oilers have been trying to force the round peg into the square hold putting him at left wing with Hemsky and Horcoff. In terms of adding a physical force to go with Hemsky’s skill and shiftiness and Horcoff’s playmaking, the fit is perfect. The problem that most Canes fans would recognize is that Cole is a very different player on the left side versus the right. As a left wing, Cole looks much more like a very capable 2-way checking line forward capable of 40ish points. A huge portion of Cole’s offensive upside comes from the right side of the offensive blueline and the arsenal of power and moves that he has to get to the net from there even against a defender back. McTavish would be well-served to have his video people put together a highlight tape of Cole goals especially from 05-06 and see how/where they come from. The team did play Cole on the right side of Moreau early and then again occasionally late once Moreau finished serving his 19 minutes of penalties. As soon as Cole gets to the right side and comfortable with his linemates his game will get better and the scoring will come. Until then he is still a great defensive part to a scoring line but not so much a true scoring left wing.

Best of luck to Erik going forward!

5) Words from the Coach. In the post-game press conference Coach Laviolette expressed disappointment in general terms in some of his top players. When asked about Cam Ward’s play, he talked about being generally disappointed in his top players. He specifically stated that he was happy with BrindAmour’s play and then went on to say that “top players needed to be better” and “needed to be more of a factor in the game. This combined with the bag skate practice following the Pittsburgh loss about 10 days ago marks twice in this short season that Coach Laviolette has expressed disappointment in the top of his lineup.

It is important to turn things around quickly at home tomorrow. I would expect to see Leighton in net not so much because of the late goal today but more simply because it is his turn. Backups usually play 1 of 2 back-to-back games, and when you consider that he has been pretty good so far this season it makes even more sense.

Go Canes!

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