If you missed it, the Canes wrapped up an impressive home stand with a win Friday to run the record to 4-0-1 over the 5 games. You can find my post-game comments HERE.
But there is little time to rest, recover and rejoice...
Following 2 great home wins to close out the home stand, the Canes get another tough challenge to close out the week playing Saturday night in St. Louis. The Blues represent yet another game against a very good Western Conference team. St. Louis’ +21 goal differential ranks 2nd only to San Jose. If you adjust for games in hand (St. Louis has played only 17 games), the Blues would push for the top spot in the entire NHL. The team comes in with a 5-game point streak and 4-0-1 record matching the Canes in its last 5 games and following a lopsided 7-3 victory over Colorado. Finally, the team features the NHL’s leading goal scorer in Alexander Steen (16 goals in 17 games!), a balanced offense and about as much big and physical as the Anaheim team that used similar to gain a sizable territorial advantage for stretches of Friday’s game. And then you layer on the fact that the Canes played last night and traveled while the Blues rested at home.
But right now the Canes are playing well. The team is confident. And by virtue of being much better defensively, the Canes are giving themselves a chance to win or at least collect points regardless of opponent and regardless of situation just about every night.
Keys to the game:
1) Survive the physical. Via some combination of matching it, surviving it and just making sure that it does not result directly in grade A scoring chances, the Canes will need to withstand another physical bunch. Certainly St. Louis’ coaching staff saw the Ducks’ effectiveness getting pucks behind the end line especially in the offensive zone and then turning the game into man against man physical battles for the puck. The Canes will need to dig down to find the will to do the best they can in these battles despite having to slog through 60 minutes of the exact same thing on Friday. Players like Ruutu, JStaal, Gerbe, Harrison, Bellemore, etc. who are built for this kind of game will need to bring the work boots and compete. And there will inevitably be the need to just survive stretches in which it is not going well and maintain the defensive foundation such that puck possession leads to medium grade not high grade scoring chances.
2) More cohesion moving the puck as a 5-man unit with some ability to quickly beat the 1st level of the forecheck. I think where the Canes struggled most on Friday was their inability to use multiple passes the get the puck moving north-south through the neutral zone. The team regressed a bit to some preseason struggles that saw forwards flying the zone a bit early, going nowhere specific and therefore not creating a passing lane and therefore too often leaving the Canes defense to try to move the puck 2v3 or even 2v4 against an aggressive forecheck that pushed forward and closed down most of the long passing lanes. Anaheim was arguably the most aggressive team that the Canes have seen on the forecheck this season regularly having 4 bodies inside the blue line on the forecheck while the Canes tried to transition from defense to offense. The result was a string of too many 1 pass rushes that did not get through or behind the defense and left the Canes seemingly playing 1 against 2 or 3 on 2/3 of the ice surface. The occasional Murphy or JStaal solo rush seemed to be the only way the Canes gained any kind of advantage moving the puck. The Blues might not be quite as far forward as the Ducks, but especially after scouting last night’s game, one can bet they will also dial up the intensity on the forecheck. The Canes will need some combination of a better short outlets in the defensive to get the puck moving north-south in a different lane (Dvorak is incredibly good at providing that outlet) and ideally the ability to spring someone behind the defense that is so far forward to create an occasional breakaway or odd man rush.
3) Sticking to the core. The foundation of the Canes solid play has been the defense 18 skaters deep. Even when things are not going their way like the 1st half or two-thirds of Friday’s game, the team is doing incredibly well limiting the kind of chances it results in and at least giving their goalie a chance. And of course Peters has stood tall of late with even a reasonable chance to make a save. If/when the Blues drag the team into a physical, grinding affair, the Canes need to hunker down a bit, stay the course defensively and not try to cheat their way out of a challenging 60 minutes. Recently this has been a consistent recipe for at least having a chance to claim points in the standings in the 3rd period.
A couple other things I will be watching:
--The lineup. It will be interesting to see if any of Dvorak, Gleason or Skinner play. Per Friday’s reports, Dvorak seems possible and Gleason and Skinner maybe less so. Dvorak would be a key addition because he would get the Canes back to having 4 solid lines which will enable Muller to balance minutes to keep people fresh. As I noted above, Dvorak is 1 of the Canes most heady forwards in terms of providing short makeable outlet passes in the defensive zone for defensemen under duress to get the puck going north-south, so he could also help in that regard.
--Continuation. Despite not scoring, Gerbe/JStaal/Dwyer had a great game Friday following a 2-goal outburst on Tuesday. They are starting to look like the line that played really well in preseason. Hopefully it is the start of a longer term trend. Drayson Bowman was easily 1 of the Canes best forwards on Friday both on the 4th line initially and then later moving up to EStaal’s line. He had jump and a sense of urgency that led to multiple good scoring chances. Hopefully he can continue it and help spark EStaal’s line that notched a goal Friday.
Saturday is a difficult challenge, but the Canes are riding a can-do/find a way wave right now. Any kind of point in the standings would be a good 1.
The puck drops a little bit after 8pm on Fox Sports Carolinas.
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