In case you missed it, yesterday I posted a quick assessment of the Kevin Westgarth trade and also 10 random thoughts on the team. You can find that HERE.
With the completion of tonight’s game against the Montreal Canadiens, the Carolina Hurricanes will flip the calendar on a December that could not end soon enough. The month started well with the Canes winning 3 of their first 4 games. The middle was rough in terms of quality of play, but the Canes somehow grinded out 4 points on a 4-game road trip going 1-1-2 out West. Since then things have taken a turn for the worse with the team going 0-3-2 in its last 5 games.
That sets the stage for the Canes to try to win for the 1st time in 6 tries in “holiday home games…, give the regular home fans a small present and head into January with the losing streak halted. (Note: Canes lost to NJ and Van over Thanksgiving week then Was and Clu in the days leading up to Christmas and finally Pit last Fri after Christmas.)
This I the part where I usually provide a few notes on the opponent, but at this point it is not about the opponent. It is about the Carolina Hurricanes. In 2012-13 when the team hit a rough patch and stretch of adversity and started sliding, it did not recover until the entire season was lost and late March was rendered an exercise in draft lottery positioning not playoff hopes. By no means are the Canes at the point where the season is lost, but the road that they are currently on definitely goes there if they do not turn off soon.
Keys to the game from the Canes standpoint mostly revolve around eliminating the bad things that have only recently crept into the losses:
1) Goaltending. Who knows who gets the start in net. Neither Peters nor Ward have been good in net in their past 2 tries. Khudobin could be in the picture for Thursday’s game after playing a back-to-back on Sunday and Monday on his conditioning stint in the AHL, but he is out of the picture for Tuesday. Regardless of who plays, the team needs a better effort in net to have a chance.
2) Back to basics/cut out the mistakes. For me the most disturbing part of the current slide has been the reversion to the bad 2012-13 hockey that saw the Canes play pretty good hockey for long stretches of games but consistently shoot themselves in the foot with too many bad mistakes. Early this season even when struggling to score, the Canes were much improved defensively and with attention to details. That enabled the team to pick up points even minus offense and at least tread water in the standings. All 3 losses last week featured boat loads of bad hockey plays that can easily turn most of 60 minutes of decent hockey into a loss.
3) The leaders need to lead. Best guess is that we will see a bit of line juggling to include a reunion of Eric Staal and Alexander Semin. It is possible in the NHL to get by for stretches with secondary scoring, tight defense, hot goaltending, a bit of luck or whatever. But over the course of a full 82-game season if a team’s best players are not as good or better than the other teams’ best most nights, eventually the house of cards collapses and a team reverts to wherever its stars carry it in the standings. With limited exceptions, the Canes top players are underperforming expectations this season. We are nearing now or never time for players like Eric Staal, Alexander Semin and Cam Ward to rise up.
Here is hoping that the Canes can pull out a feel-good holiday win on the last try and begin to right the ship for a run of better hockey in January. Per my blog from last night, the January schedule is favorable, and I think the run of games until the Olympic break will decide whether the Canes are in the playoff chase in early April or again sizing up possible early draft picks to help the team next year.
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