After a 5-day layoff, it can be hard to guess what kind of effort a team will put forth. Will they be a bit rusty and slow to find the jump and rhythm? Or will they look rested, fresh and ready to go again?
The Carolina Hurricanes were clearly the latter in their Friday night tilt against the Capitals. The team clearly deserved a better fate than the 4-2 loss. The team was fast out of the gate and put forward 1 of its better 60-minute efforts of the season. When it was all said and done, the Canes collected 41 shots, gave up 0 goals at even strength (not counting the empty-netter) and regularly shredded the Caps defense for grade A breakaway scoring attempts. Only an absolutely phenomenal effort by Philip Grubauer seemingly dominating an end of practice shootout drill against uncontested Canes attempts kept the Canes from getting the win they deserved.
A quick, superficial read through the box score would suggest that special teams were the difference. The Caps scored all 3 of their goals (again not counting the empty-netter) on the power play on which they went 3 for 4. The Canes did score on the power play, but their 1 for 5 left them a couple goals short of the Caps production.
Special teams did play a part, but I think to hang the game on them is misleading. First, the Canes power play was better than usual, mounted at least some pressure and did score. Second, the Caps power play really was more opportunistic than lights out. The real difference in this game was in net. Grubauer was up to the task in all but 1 of about 10 breakaway attempts and was just legitimately lights out all night. He could have given up 6 goals on Friday night and pointed to the team in front of him. And Cam Ward continued to struggle. The 1st goal saw him drop a pretty harmless Backstrom wrist shot from a ways out right in front of him to be tapped into the net. The 2nd goal saw him continue his recent struggles with any kind of traffic and get screened and beat from the blue line when there really was not that much traffic. The 3rd goal was a deflection that would have been a tough save, but the redirect was from a way out and sort of fluttered in. Might it have been stoppable had he tracked the puck (he again seemed to lose it)? Maybe. As much as the goals against, you could tell that Ward was still fighting it by his inability to do more than fight pucks off and leave rebounds wherever they wanted to go.
Regardless of details, I would say that Ward faced below average volume of quality scoring attempts and managed to turn it into 3 goals against while his opposite in net stood behind a horribly porous defense and miraculously turned it into 2 goals against and a win.
But past the disappointing results and Cam Ward's continued struggle to find his game, the game was overwhelmingly positive from a Canes standpoint:
--Jeff Skinner. He was absolutely phenomenal despite not scoring. His ability to burst through tiny holes and burn a path to the net was outstanding. His play from inside his blue line through the entire Caps defense to the net was worth watching again on the DVR this morning even though he did not score. He worked hard to earn a couple of the breakaway attempts and was offensively dangerous all night. Here is an interesting observation though. Out of all of the goals on his recently scoring streak, how many are from the wild shot variety versus nifty scoring plays from in close? If I find time, I was going to go back through all of his recent goals to tally specifics, but if my memory is decent almost all of his goals are the shot variety. As well as he is playing and as often as he is finding in-close scoring chances, that is not so much where his offense is coming from. He failed on his recent shootout attempt and also on most of his recent breakaway/partial breakaway attempts. My point is that I think he still has another gear offensively if he can start getting a few more of the grade A chances in the net. But that aside, he was arguably the best forward on the ice (on a night with a ton of star power in Ovechkin, Backstrom, EStaal, JStaal, Semin, etc.) which is impressive.
--Jordan Staal. He too was incredibly good. The biggest difference for me compared to 2012-13 is how fast and assertive he is with the puck on his stick in all 3 zones. Last season, he looked big. This season he looks big and fast. Most impressive is how well he navigates the neutral zone with a combination of beating guys with skating, finding the right angles to open ice and then advancing the puck forward.
--Alexander Semin. He seems to be rounding into form. His nifty hand off on the JStaal goal was a pretty playmaker's assist and his quick shot that wriggled through Grubauer's pads and inches around the post came real close to being the goal that got the Canes a point and a chance for another in overtime. In total he notched 6 shots and looked comfortable good in the 2-way game required from JStaal's line.
--Kirk Muller. I think Muller has been real good handling the goalies this year. He has generally stayed the course of just trying to win the next hockey game without much concern for contracts and all of the other stuff outside of the next 60 minutes on the ice. And I can see why he wants to get Ward back into the mix sooner rather than later. But I think he fell intot he trap of coaching what he wanted to happen yesterday instead of sticking to his basic mantra of trying to give his team the best chance to win. With a back-to-back and 3 games in 4 nights, it makes sense that both goalies would get a start this weekend. But with the Caps being the more important game being only 4 points ahead in the division, I think you go with your best on Friday going after a win in the 1st game when you are fresher at home and playing the more important of the 1st 2 games. The best right now is Justin Peters.
--Andrej Sekera. He continues to play well obviously. Most noticeable on Friday was his continued ability to make a small move to find shooting lanes to get the puck through to the net.
Next up is a chance to get it back in Tampa on Saturday. With matching losses by the Devils and the Rangers on Friday night, the Canes held on to 4th place in the Metro and are still only a point behind the Flyers (with same number of games played).
I hope to get up a game preview by mid-afternoon today, so check back if you want to hear my take on Saturday night's game.
Twitter=@CarolinaMatt63
Go Canes!