Tuesday night in PNC Arena brought a familiar face, a couple actually, from some of the good RBC Center days of old. The foe was none other than Peter Laviolette behind the bench with Matt Cullen in tow. And with what seems to be a repeatable process, Laviolette has jump started another franchise with up-tempo hockey to the tune of a 16-5-2 (coming in) record and 1st place in the Central Division.
But the Canes were ready and able. They did not play a flashy game nor did they utterly dominate it. But they were just solid to a man and very good overall. Cam Ward played a major role in the win, but I would not say that he had to stand on his head to steal a win. Though not by a huge margin, the Canes were the better team and were rewarded for it. The thing that stood out to me was just how sound the Canes were all night with maybe the lone exception being the turnover that quickly found its way to Ribeiro's stick alone in front of Ward for the Preds' lone goal. Otherwise, the Canes pretty consistently moved pucks forward, defended in their own zone and even when they got hemmed in a bit were positionally sound that what they gave up was minimal. And the Canes did it by playing a deep roster and just rolling lines in a game that was power play-free until the midway point of the 3rd period. All of the Canes forwards played more than 10 minutes and even the high man (Nathan Gerbe) was under 18 minutes. Justin Faulk was a little high (but still low for recently) with 22:10 of ice time, but the blue line ice time was also spread pretty evenly with 3 players (Hainsey, Gleason, Sekera) around 20 minutes and the other 2 (Liles, Jordan) close behind at around 17. When you net it out, the Canes to a man played a solid hockey game and unlike a few games recently were rewarded for it. The win starts another month with a stretch of home games with optimism that the team can make up for October.
A few quick player notes:
1) Skinner/Rask/Nestrasil. They were the team's best line all night scoring both goals and just generally garnering more scoring chances and results than some high power Nashville lines and also some Canes lines that theoretically slotted above them. The 1st goal was a skilled Skinner tip on a Nestrasil centering pass off the rush. The 2nd was evidence on a Victor Rask shot that it is never a bad idea to shoot the puck. His bad angle shot beat Rinne when it seemingly changed direction of a defender's stick.
2) Sekera/Faulk. Their solid outing was tarnished only slightly by being part of 1 of very few oopses that saw an odd play and quick transition with Ribeiro camped out in front with the puck all by himself. They were sound otherwise. The game finished with Andrej Sekera stepping in front of a slap shot and taking somewhere off his arm to end the game and then heading quickly to the locker room while the team gathered around Ward. Here is hoping that he just got stung by it and is good to go in 2 days.
3) Cam Ward. He was very good again slightly outplaying Pekka Rinne who was pretty good himself. He just has that air about him that he is going to make a next save if needed, and he generally has been for about 5 weeks now. He was calm under pressure late after the Preds climbed to within 2-1 and mounted pressure seeking OT hockey.
4) Gleason/Liles. In a game against a Laviolette-style up-tempo team, Tim Gleason held his own and Liles also made a number of good plays in his own end.
With only the Isles and Pens pulling away in the Metro Division, the Canes still have a sight line on the #3 spot and the playoff berth it represents sitting only 7 points behind the Rangers. Next up are the Caps on Thursday again at home with a chance to pull within 3 points of them with a regulation win.
Twitter=@CarolinaMatt63 -- #ForgetOctober #AndNovemberToo
Go Canes!