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Game #36: Justin Peters steals a point

December 21, 2013, 10:04 PM ET [7 Comments]
Matt Karash
Carolina Hurricanes Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Saturday's game was more or less the complete opposite of Friday's. On Friday versus the Caps, the Canes were by far the better team and deserved to win but by virtue of being outplayed in net, the Canes got nothing for the effort. Saturday the Canes never got going. They managed a couple scoring plays but really not even a single burst of sustained offense in regulation. Justin Peters was the story of the game. Making 47 saves on 50 shots including 5-6 highlight-reel worthy saves, he was the best player in the game and good enough to steal a point in the standings with an OTL mostly by himself.

The game had a bit of the feel of the stretch in November when the Canes were playing a tough stretch of schedule against top-tier teams and losing the same way almost nightly. The good teams seem to have a knack for hemming the Canes in, making them play too much in the defensive zone corners and behind there net and then move (or mostly fail to move) the puck up the ice step by step. Under pressure from these teams the Canes struggle to move the puck as a 5-man unit. The result is that they play defense most of the game.

A few quick notes:

--Justin Peters. I will NEVER admit that Justin Peters has turned the corner as an NHL goalie. He is doing so incredibly well with me refusing to believe that a mid-20s goalie can improve that much in such a short period of time that I refuse to risk jinxing it by switching over.

I cannot recall a game in recent history in which a goalie has played that well in a loss. And the game easily ranks in the top handful (and possibly the best even) Canes goalie performance this season. He has absolutely phenomenal.

--The 3rd line. They were the only line that really got going. They moved the puck pretty well and played more offense than the other lines. Tlusty scored a goal (the 2nd was shorthanded and not with the line) and had a decent number of chances. If the Canes continue to pack the offense in the top 2 lines, the 3rd line is a decent combination. All 3 players skate pretty well which will hopefully yield some transition offense that is the specialty of Dwyer and could also benefit Nash. Tlusty provides a bit of offensive zone offense punch. And all 3 are sound defensively which continues to give the Canes 4 lines that they can skate in all situations.

--Jiri Tlusty. So Jiri Tlusty has underperformed offensively by a huge margin so far this season, but I what I like about him is that he has continued to be a decent 2-way player. The result is that in down times he still slots okay as a 3rd-liner if necessary. But all that said, if Tlusty can regain his scoring touch, the Canes become deeper offensively and also have more options to build out 2 scoring lines with some secondary scoring left for the 3rd line. Here is hoping that his 2-goal outburst will be the fuel that gets him going more regularly.

With the Canes generally playing decent hockey and coming off a good outing on Friday, I am okay with accepting the point in the standings, writing the game off as an off night against a good team for the 2nd half of a back-to-back and just moving on.

The Metro standings now see the Canes out of a playoff spot at #3 but very much in the thick of the cluster of teams competing for the last spot. The difference between #3 and #7 in the division is a miniscule 3 points.

Twitter=@CarolinaMatt63 (where I talk Canes but also eating etiquette and morals)

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