On Saturday night, the 4 teams immediately ahead of the Canes in the Metro Division standings (NJ, NYR, Was and Phi who leapfrogged the Canes with the win) all won. None play on Sunday, so the Canes get a chance to make up the points and keep pace with a win against the Canucks in Raleigh. A win would also immediately cut short a losing streak at 1 and help the team quickly move past a disappointing 3rd period collapse and subsequent loss on Friday against New Jersey.
With no morning skate before the early start, there are a bunch of questions to be answered in warm-ups and early in the game: --Does Andrej Sekera return to help solidify the defense? He seems doubtful after not practicing Saturday. --After a mediocre at best game by Ward on Friday, does Muller go back to Peters to keep him in the mix? --Do we see any line shuffling? I do not think JStaal’s line has looked as good with Gerbe’s jump to EStaal’s line. --After a lackadaisical 3rd period that led to a Canes loss, Muller’s post-game interview was littered with words like “passengers…, “consistency," etc. Will he manage to light a fire under some people in between games to see if he can spur a better start out of the gate?
Vancouver comes into the game with 6 points more than the Canes but still finds itself 3 points out of a playoff spot in the West. Having played Saturday afternoon against the Rangers, hopefully the Canucks come in a bit tired and sluggish with a strange back-to-back of both afternoon games. It also seems possible that the Canes will see backup goalie Eddie Lack and not former Southeast Division nemesis Roberto Luongo.
I will be watching for a few things especially early:
1) A response after Friday’s collapse. The 3rd period Friday really was ugly with 4 goals against 1 after another with not even a brief interlude for a Canes push back. Muller was clearly not happy with the effort level based on his post-game comments. You can bet that the words in private on Saturday were even less cheery. Do the Canes respond with a higher level of effort and intensity especially out of the gate?
2) Best of the best win. With some top-end forwards on both teams, I think whichever team’s best players rise up probably wins Sunday. Is it the Sedins and Kesler? Or is it the Staals and Skinner?
3) Jeff Skinner. Despite scoring a goal, he had a rough game Friday. As I said in my post-game notes, he started the season on fire offensively and maybe even more impressively playing improved hockey on the defensive side of the puck. But the real test for him comes when the offense is not coming as easily (like now). Under these circumstances, does he buckle down, compete hard and stay true to the 2-way play? Or does he fall victim to old habits of cheating the defensive side of the ledger just a little to generate offense? Here is hoping that Friday was a blip and not a trend.
The past few times the Canes lost a 1st game, it turned into an extended losing streak. A loss in Minnesota awhile back grew to 5 games before the Canes could get back in the win column. And more recently the loss in St. Louis led to a 4-game losing streak (with an OTL point in the last game). The Canes need to improve on their ability to cut some of these losing streaks short, so that when they do string together a few wins it pushes them above .500 and up the standings versus just barely pulling their heads back above water after sinking during the losing streak.
Puck drops a little after 1pm on Sunday. Here is hoping enough other people opt for afternoon hockey at PNC Arena over football on TV.
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