Coming into Saturday night's Canes' game in St. Louis, I was a little worried that the combination of another strong opponent with its share of size and nastiness might be a tough hurdle after playing and traveling the night before. I think in general that was correct. St. Louis was not better by a huge margin but they were better. But despite being outplayed a bit and struggling to generate much offensively, the ball was clearly on the tee for the Canes to steal a point or even 2 when the Blues had a letdown/mental lapse giving the Canes 2 shorthanded goals to pull even at 2-2 late in the 2nd period. At that point, you had to figure that was just the break a confident Canes team could ride to a win or least an OTL point. But the hockey gods stepped back in and got it right.
When you net it out, I think the Canes had a couple too many mistakes to beat a good team:
--Peters was very good early holding his team in the game and overall had another good game that gave his team a chance, but he did allow a puck to wriggle through him on the short side from an angle where he should have been able to cover the corner.
--The game-winning goal resulted from inability to get the puck in deep at the offensive blue line combined with a bad line change that resulted in the league's leading goal scorer in Alex Steen steaming in on the right side. He obviously is not missing those this year.
But when you look bigger picture, the Canes had an incredibly good week playing 3 of the best teams in the Western Conference and finishing with a solid 2-1 record.
A few quick player notes:
--Manny Malhotra. He just keeps contributing with a nice pass to spring Eric Staal for his goal and his normal 67% (16 of 24) in the face-off circle.
--Justin Faulk. He seemed to recover, but he had a rough 1st period taking 2 minor penalties and also coughing up the puck from inside his own end. This comes on the back of his bad turnover for the Perry goal on Friday night. He has been generally solid all season, so it is reasonably to expect that he will right the ship on Monday.
--Jay Harrison. He has been playing quietly sound hockey all season, but made a couple costly mistakes on Saturday. He was 1 of the 2 (pretty sure Gleason was the other) who went off a bit early when the Canes failed to get the puck behind the St. Louis defense and to the end wall. The result was a back-breaking goal for St. Louis that stood up to be the winner.
--Justin Peters. He again played well enough to give his team a chance.
--Need to find a bit more offense. On a night like Saturday where offense is hard to find and the team is struggling to generate much, the power play can be the difference. It was not on Saturday and looked to be in disarray at times. I think the group missed Murphy and his ability to back up the defense with his speed and make offensive zone entry easier. Then the team was minus Alexander Semin late. Other than the back-to-back mistakes by St. Louis that led directly to 2 shorthanded goals, the Canes mustered very little offensively. When the Canes play Boston on Monday it will be a full 30 days before the Canes have managed to score 3 goals (last time was October 19 at New York Islanders.
--Alexander Semin. For those who did not watch the game, Semin got clobbered by Pietrangelo on a clean but hard hit when Semin tried to come out around the net with his head down. He was slow to get off the ice, but did so under his own power and returned to the game. But then he did not return for the 3rd period with what was labeled the specific "upper body injury." One can hope that since he returned it was not a concussion but maybe truly an upper body injury, but that is just speculation until we hear something Sunday or Monday.
The failure of the Canes to seize the opportunity to steal a point or 2 when the Blues gifted them 2 goals is disappointing, but the week was a good one. Next up the Canes play more good hockey teams with Boston twice (1st home, 2nd away) sandwiched around a road game in Detroit.
There is no time to think about what ifs, just time to keep pushing forward. Ward, Dvorak and Skinner could all be part of the mix for the next game against Boston on Monday in Raleigh.
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