If you checked out over the weekend with no Canes hockey for football or movie awards, you can find my Saturday blog HERE.
With a Canes loss Friday and a bunch of hockey over the weekend, the Canes fell a couple points farther down the playoff ladder, but nothing really changed that much. In the Metro Division, the Canes sit 4 points behind Washington and the New York Rangers for the 2nd and 3rd playoff spots for the division. In the dog fight for the 2 wild card spots below that Detroit and Philadelphia have 50 points, Toronto 49, Ottawa and New Jersey 48 and then Carolina follows with 47. Many of these teams are heating up which means it is going to take a run of more consistently good hockey in the 2nd half to make the playoffs. The majority of teams that continue to match winning streaks with losing streaks will fall short. The handful of teams that can string something longer term together will play hockey in mid-April.
That sets the stage for the Canes Monday night matchup against Calgary. On the surface, the game does not look like much. It is a Monday night game against a Western Conference team still in the 1st half of January. Must win is always a dramatic overstatement at this juncture of the season, but I do think this is a huge game because: --It cuts a losing streak short at 1 game. The key to progress is being able to follow up a solid winning streak like the 1 the Canes just lost with another before all of the ground gained is lost. --With NHL schedule challenges that make winning everything difficult, the Canes MUST capitalize when they get 1 of the rare games that they really just should win.
And this is a game that the Canes should win. Calgary comes into the game having lost 7 of 8 and having scored a measly 2 goals in the 7 losses. That’s right. The Flames have been shut out in 5 of their last 8. Even with the 4-3 win added in, Calgary is averaging 0.75 goals for over their past 8 versus 3.25 goals against. The Flames just are not a very good hockey team right now. But in the NHL where parity abounds, the winning percentage against “not very good… is more like 60/40 or 65/35 and far from a sure thing.
So what do the Canes need to do to win this game? I think it is simple:
1) Cut out the mistakes. Calgary is obviously struggling to score right now. The Canes need to avoid the ‘oopses’ for goals against that reared their ugly head again in Friday’s loss in Columbus after mostly disappearing for the previous 4 wins.
2) Overwhelm. The Canes need to come out with fire and intensity and immediately put the pedal to the metal out of the gate. When teams show up and expect to win this kind of game without bringing the intensity and work ethic is exactly when it goes wrong.
Riley Nash is officially off IR, Eric Staal practiced Sunday and Zach Boychuk and Brett Sutter are back in Charlotte, so expect the lineup to look a bit different Monday with 1 or both of Nash and EStaal back on the ice.
The Canes REALLY need to win games like this one. Puck drops at 7pm at PNC Arena or on Fox Sports Carolinas if you cannot make it to the game.
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