If you are catching up, you can find my game recap from the Canes win Saturday night against Florida HERE.
After the loss in Columbus last Friday, I said that the magnitude of it would be determined by what happened in the next game the following Monday. The Canes had won 5 straight going into the Columbus game, were playing the 2nd half of a back-to-back against a rested team and also ran into a legitimately hot goalie. You are not going to win 40 straight, so a single loss seemed reasonable especially against the backdrop of the previous 5 wins. And besides, the Canes had a home game against a Calgary team that had lost 7 of 8 and was struggling mightily to score goals. That game presented the chance for the Canes to quickly get back in the win column. Instead the Canes fell flat, lost a very winnable game and set themselves to fall further down the standings over the next 4 off days.
So Saturday night the Canes played a good game overall, rode strong games by Alexander Semin and Anton Khudobin and cut the losing streak short at 2 games. But as I noted in my recap, the skating, shooting and generally loose style of play in that game was the kind of game in which the Canes are comfortable. The timing was probably perfect to catch a game like this get back on the right track before skidding too far down the hill and to regather a little bit of confidence.
But as I said last week, I think the ultimate fate of the Canes 2013-14 season will probably be determined more by how the Canes fare in the games they do not play well (at least in terms of getting their way and having an easy time of it offensively, i.e. the 6-1 Toronto win) than by how the team fares when it does. The Canes will have some number of games down the stretch where things come easy and their offense and skill carry the day and earn a win. But in an NHL full of parity, with things tightening up down the stretch and teams that have the personnel/style of play to do so very much understanding the playbook for how to drag the Canes into a style of game that is not in the Canes comfort zone.
Enter the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Over the course of the past few years, the Lightning have gradually transformed from a primarily skill team to a team heavier on grinding, work ethic, defense and system. In 2 tries in 2013-14, the Canes are 0-1-1 against Tampa. But more telling is the how. In the 1st game on November 1, the game was incredibly tight halfway through the game. Tampa then scored 1st, put the clamps on defensively and gave the Canes absolutely nothing on the way to a 3-0 win. Especially the 2nd half of the game featured the Lightning playing pucks to the corners and behind the end line in the Canes defensive zone and then making it miserable for the Canes to win the puck and advance it up the ice. The result was the Canes being hemmed in their own end and being only to move the puck only disjointedly up the ice bit by bit with no flow or speed. The 2nd Tampa game was even worse despite getting the Canes an OTL point. Playing the 2nd half of a back-to-back, the Canes were greatly outplayed, gave up 50 shots and only via a miraculous effort by Justin Peters gained a point in a game that felt more like a 6-2 loss. The formula was again the same. Tampa got the puck deep and then kept it there. The Canes failed to ever find any cohesion moving the puck up the ice and mostly spent the entire game trying to survive in their own end.
Sunday's back-to-back is closer to the fair variety with the Canes actually having a slight physical edge. Both teams played yesterday, but the Canes were home by 11pm while Tampa was just boarding a flight to Raleigh. But with both teams playing last night, the game could take on a sluggish, grinding kind of feel.
So the keys to the game:
1) Ability/willingness to play the other style. If this game does become a grinding, no quarter given, battle in the corners identity can/will the Canes rise up and compete at the level they need to stay in a game like this. Can they scratch and claw for an ugly goal or 2? Will they win at least close to 50% of the 1-on-1 battles on the boards? Or does this game go the route of the Calgary loss in which the Canes increasingly play without the puck and offensively regularly settle for play and low-percentage shots outside the perimeter of the Tampa defense.
2) Best against best. Tampa will be without Stamkos who is skating but not yet back, but instead they have Marty St. Louis riding his Olympic snub to a level of play that is equal to a St. Louis, a Stamkos and 1/2 of an old Lecavalier. Jordan Staal probably sees a ton of his line. And the Canes on the left side of the ice (so Sekera, Hainsey, Gerbe) probably see the most of him. If the Canes can break even against St. Louis' line matching up as I expect, it puts the ball on the tee for a continued surge by the 1st line to win a game.
3) Determination. It is sort of a repeat of #1, but we are at the point in the season where winning teams find a higher gear and level of effort when that is what it takes to win while other teams that eventually finish 8th-12th sort of oscillate back and forth between good and bad games. The Canes need to will themselves to that higher level in some of these games that do not come easy. I think this could be 1 of those.
Kirk Muller made comments this week about using Khudobin and Peters but did not go so far as to award Peters a start Sunday. With no skate today, the starter will not likely be known until nearly game time. Peters was in net for his best game of the year in a 3-2 OTL that saw him stop 7,000 shots against Tampa in December, so I guess that could create the positive vibe to get him back in net. We will see about 4:30pm.
Puck drops at 5pm. If you cannot make it PNC Arena, the game is on Fox Sports Carolinas.
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