With a big win at home in Raleigh on Sunday night, the Canes ran its record to 4-0 for the week and 3-0 for January. The game was not as exciting as the last home win on New Year’s Eve. It was more of the work boots variety featuring a continuation of the back again defense that was a trademark of the early season.
My game keys were: 1) Being patient but opportunistic offensively and not gambling for goals – check; 2) C3 minutes. Rather than creating a C3 from below Muller moved Skinner to center the 1st line to keep the 2nd and 3rd lines intact. Skinner did not miss a beat moving to center and Sutter’s line was fine - check; 3) No let up at end of a good week. The Canes battled hard in a grinding sort of game in which nothing came easy – check.
The Canes recent run makes a strong case that while advanced stats do offer another insight into games/teams, they are not everything and do not trump watching games and understanding what is happening. For me the biggest gap is the lack of any kind of measurement/rating of quality of shot attempts and also any kind of measure of “bad breakdowns… or similar. During the recent losing streak, the Hurricanes regularly outshot and mostly out-advance-statted its opponents. But mixed in were high volumes of bad turnovers, defensive zone coverage and other mistakes that instantly created grade 10 of 10 shots on goal for the opponent while the Canes piled up grade 2, 3 and 4 low-quality chances and seemed to be winning the shots and possession game. During the 0-3-2 run, the Canes outshot their opponent in 4 of the 5 losses. Even the start to the current run the Canes outshot Montreal but were greatly outplayed through 2 periods and managed a miracle win only via power plays and a 3rd period Jeff Skinner surge. In the 3 wins since the Canes have been outshot by an average of 9 shots per game but have been victorious in all 3. Part of it is Khudobin’s solid goaltending, but the other key is that the Canes have returned to defending the front of the net and avoiding the breakdowns that lead to goals against real fast.
It is all about playing sound hockey which does not create offense for the opponent.
Game notes:
--Anton Khudobin. He was obviously solid again. I think Muller’s decision to start Khudobin very clearly says how important he thinks putting together a run is. With Khudobin playing 4 games in the past 7 days including last night coming into the game, this game screamed backup start. Muller instead went with the best chance to win with the aim of pushing forward with the winning streak and upward in the standings.
--Jeff Skinner. He continues to be 1 of the best offensive players in the league right now.
--The AHL line. The line of Boychuk/Sutter/Palushaj was very good. They did not score or create a ton of offense, but they did an incredibly good job playing their shifts in the offensive zone far away from goals against danger. The shift in which they played the entire 40 seconds in the offensive in the 2nd period and got a line change before the Preds could change. Those shifts swing momentum and burn opposing players’ legs for later in the game. In about 10 minutes average ice time each, the line brought energy and stayed out of trouble which is exactly what you want. As a side note, Sutter was also 5 of 6 in the faceoff circle.
--Top line. Skinner is mentioned above. Semin and Ruutu also figured in both goals. 2 goals is not an abundance of offense but with decent defense and good goaltending, it was enough.
--Interesting spread of forward ice time. With an early lead, Muller leaned real heavily on his best defensive players with JStaal’s line seeing the most ice time and Malhotra’s 2nd most and fished a bit for matchups with the top line. Skinner and Ruutu saw only 13 minutes of ice time and Semin only 16 which is only a 3-4 minutes more than the 4th-line players.
--JStaal's line. They did not create much scoring-wise, but they did not give up much either. Per my keys to the season back in early October, breakeven for that line can be enough some games even, and it does not matter if it is 0-0.
--John-Michael Liles. We all love to do detailed analysis, but sometimes it is simple. With him inserted in the lineup, the Canes are winning and he has regularly been on the ice for goals for. He did take a minor penalty in Sunday’s game, but he also used his mobility to come up aggressively from the blue line to keep the puck in for Skinner’s game-winning goal. Because Semin forwarded the puck along and Ruutu ultimately found Ruutu, he did not register an assist.
But more so than sorting through bits, bites and individual plays, it is simple. Liles' mobility just gets him to more pucks, players and whatever else as compared to Gleason. At the end of the day it is a skating game, and whereas Gleason was struggling mobility-wise, Liles is using his wheels to be in more plays.
The win pushes the Canes to the edge of the playoff cutoff just a point below both Philadelphia and Washington. Next up is for the Canes to try to layer a good week on top of a previous good week. The team has struggled to accomplish this.
--After a 2-0-1 week in October, the Canes went 0-2 the next week. --In early December the Canes followed a 3-0 week with a ‘treading water’ 1-1-2 week.
This week, the Canes see Buffalo and Columbus with a home Toronto game in the middle. With another good week, we could see the Canes back in a playoff spot.
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