The Canes hit another bump in the road Sunday night in their 4-1 loss to the Devils. Not only did the Canes miss out on a chance to get their first set of consecutive wins, the Canes lost their most important D-man. Justin Faulk went down Sunday night and has been listed as week-to-week with an upper body injury. As of now, Faulk did not travel with the team and they are awaiting results from an MRI that was done on Monday.
Beyond the obvious fact that losing a talent like Faulk is tough—it comes at a time that has seen the D-unit play rather sloppy the past few games. Murphy has struggled in his 3 games since returning to the line-up from his early season injury—he was a liability against Nashville and New Jersey and cost the Canes a few goals. As a result, Coach Peters has elected to scratch him for tonight’s game and Klas Dahlbeck and Jakub Nakladal are back in the line-up. That makes Hainsey the only true “vet… on the blueline—the Canes will have to tighten up and simplify the game.
On paper, the Canes appeared to play a solid game on Sunday as they outshot the Devils 34-20, however, most of those shots were low scoring opportunities. The Canes didn’t have great transitional play and were plagued again with turnovers, goaltending woes and poor D zone coverage. The Devils imposed their game on the Canes by slowing it down and being opportunistic when the Canes made mistakes. Mike Cammalleri torched Eddie Lack as he scored on all three of his shots and earned a natural hat-trick. The forwards have got to find a way to use their speed more and create better scoring opportunities, create more traffic in front and find some rebounds tonight.
Coach Peters is still looking to find the right forward line combinations and switched them up again tonight. Coach Peters has elected to break up the 1st line that started so hot—I think it has to do with the fact that Stempniak has cooled off and Lindholm has been looking solid. Aho has been demoted to the 4th line for tonight—he has had some amazing scoring chances, but just can’t seem to find the net. One positional change saw Teravainen move from the wing and to center tonight on the 3rd line—I don’t think this will be too much of an issue. The forwards have got to step up and get some production to try and take some of the pressure off the young D-unit.
After tonight, the Canes come home for five straight games. Right now, the Canes mentality needs to be that this stretch is their “road to the playoffs.… If they don’t find some success here, barring some miracle, their fate in the standings will probably be relatively set.
The Canes projected lines: Skinner- Rask -Lindholm Nordstrom- Staal - Nestrasil Di Guiseppe- Teravainen -Stempniak Stalberg- McClement –Aho
Slavin – Pesce Dahlbeck - Hainsey Hanifin – Nakladal
Ward (Confirmed)