So Tuesday saw the Canes pick up 2 points on most of the Metro Division that was idle that day but had lost Monday. Wednesday saw New Jersey scrape out a point with a shootout loss and Philadelphia win big. The standings this morning show the Metro Division somehow becoming more bunched up not less as the season marches on. #2 Washington (30 points) is idle tonight, so it takes only a Canes win (which would push them to 29 points) to make the separation between 2nd and 6th place a maximum of 2 points in the standings.
So now 28 games into the season, we are about where we started with most of the 8 teams in the division more or less tied at a secondary starting line for a shorter race. At some point, it is going to take a greater winning pace to stay in the hunt, but I think overall the Canes have to be thrilled with where they are even if the path to get there has been uneven and had its share of adversity. When you consider the ending for the 2012-13 season, the volume of key personnel changes over the summer, the number of injuries to important players and the challenging schedule, I am pleased with where the Canes are in the standings even if it took a weak division to get there.
And though it has already been demonstrated multiple times that it can change in the blink of an eye, after 1 of the team's best wins of the season Tuesday the current trajectory, though short, is upward.
That gets us to Thursday's game. Nashville enters 2 points better than the Canes but in a much worse position in the standings because of their division. The Preds actually have worse injury issues than the Canes with core players Pekka Rinne and Shea Weber out of action. Nashville lost the game in which Weber was injured and is 0-1-1 since then. Minus Rinne Nashville is .500 over a stretch of almost 20 games, so like the Canes made a reasonably successful adjustment to regular use of secondary goalies. To put it in more familiar Eastern Conference terms, Nashville plays the brand of hockey that you get from the hard-working 2nd - 4th lines of the Islanders (minus their high end top line) when they are playing well. They work incredibly hard. They battle like mad. They get balanced scoring from a number of sources.
I think this game could be a bit of a trap for the Canes. Tuesday's win came easy, maybe too easy. In no way to I mean to discredit the Canes effort level and intensity which were better. But at the end of the day, the easiness came as a result of a rough night in net by Holty as much as anything. You have to give Jeff Skinner credit for getting the puck on net quickly on the 1st goal but NHL goalies just should not give up goals from that place on the ice. The 2nd Skinner goal also beat him short side from a side angle. And the Sekera power play goal saw Holtby wander farther and farther to his right to try to see around a Tuomo Ruutu screen only to mostly not find a line of sight and at the same time leave a gaping hole on the other side. The set up very much reminds me of the consecutive games against New Jersey. The 1st game saw the Canes notch 4 goals with similarly non-traditional offense scoring on 2 seemingly non-threatening shots from the blue line that benefitted from screens and also a shorthanded goal. The offense came easy and not so much from hard work and a consistent push but from individual plays and a bit of luck. So in the follow up game the Canes built a 2-1 lead only to collapse mightily in the 3rd period when the Devils found a higher gear that the Canes were unable to match. So here we are again with the follow up game to a win in which the offense came a bit easily against a team that will work incredibly hard and should make it difficult to find any easy offense.
With that my keys to the game:
1) Don't look for easy; be willing to do hard. If the Canes show up looking for another relatively easy 4-goal outburst via a couple pretty and/or opportunistic plays and minus a bunch of work, I expect Nashville will very quickly put them on the Canes on their heels and tilt the ice. (We have seen the slow/sluggish 1st period Canes start multiple times recently and know how it usually ends.)
The Canes need to bring the hard hats, lunch pails and boots and a blue-collar work mentality to match the Preds. If the Canes fail to match Nashville's work ethic, all of the other game keys, matchups, etc. could easily fade into the background, become irrelevant and leave Kirk Muller grumbling and befuddled in another post-game press conference in which he seems at a loss for why his team cannot bring it every night.
2) Special teams. If the hockey gods do not lose track of the easy win that they awarded on Tuesday and offer another, I would expect this to be a bit of a grinding affair. In such a game, special teams could easily be the difference. After an abysmal week on the power play last week, the Canes notched a power play goal Tuesday and generally looked better. Hopefully it is a trend and not a 1-game blip via the Holtby struggles noted above.
3) Beat the 1st line of defense and attack. With an inexperienced goalie and no Shea Weber on the back end, the Canes need to get past the front part of the forecheck, move the puck and put pressure on the Preds good young defensemen. Josi and Jones are no slouches defensively, but they are being asked to be the guys rather than playing with the (guy) which is a different level of pressure. If the Canes can get the puck moving through the neutral zone and over the blue line with numbers and speed, I think there could be scoring chances to be had.
4) Surge by the leaders. Eric Staal has fairly quietly been racking up points at a greater than 1 per game pace for a few weeks now. After a slow start after return from injury, Jeff Skinner busted loose for 2 goals, 3 points and multiple decent chances for a hat trick on Tuesday. Nashville does not have a ton of high-end offensive fire power, so another big night by Skinner/EStaal/Ruutu especially without Shea Weber to help keep them in check could be the difference.
Canes lineup notes:
--Brett Bellemore is out with an upper body injury. The term being thrown around is "stiffness", so the early prognosis is that his time on the shelf looks more like day-to-day than IR. Tim Gleason is practicing and I guess physically ready but needs a few more practices before being ready for the lineup. Especially with the potential desire to boost his worth/value for a possible trade, that sounds like the polite way of saying that he is available but especially coming off another layoff just not 1 of the 6 best options on defense right now. Best bet is that Muller will just insert Komisarek's similar style of play into Bellemore's spot next to Hainsey and go with the 2 regular pairings of Sekera/Faulk and Harrison/Murphy.
--As of last night, I did not see a commitment goalie-wise. Twitter will probably tell us this afternoon if it is Ward or Peters. In my comments after yesterday's blog, I said I would go wit Peters Thursday with the initial intent to give Ward the start on Friday. Using Peters 1st leaves open the option to just keep riding him if he plays lights out on Thursday. I think ultimately Ward will win his job back permanently, but I would not force it. IF the Canes are in the playoff race in early April, it is likely to a be a 2-4 points either way kind of thing. I think that Muller will (and should) just go with whichever goalie gives the team the best chance to win 2 points each night and tonight that is Peters.
Here is hoping that the Canes can stay on the current mini-upswing on the 2013-14 rollercoaster. With a Canes win and a Rangers loss, the Canes would wake up tomorrow in 3rd place (and only 1 point out of 2nd place) in the Metro which is of course a playoff spot which is a good place to be.
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