Friday night, the Carolina Hurricanes 5-game winning streak came to a halt at the hands of the Columbus Blue Jackets in a 3-0 loss. It obviously was not a great game, but as far as losses go, it is 1 that I can stomach. Having not played since Monday, Columbus had the skating advantage against the Canes who played the night before. The Canes mustered a decent number of pretty good scoring chances early in a back and forth game, but as the 1st period progressed the Canes had increasing trouble getting the puck out of their own end losing races to lose pucks in its defensive zone. The deciding point from an offensive point was a couple bad Canes turnovers under pressure that led directly to goals. First, Brett Sutter under pressure tried to fire a puck out from behind the end line, but the puck hit a Blue Jacket skate and caromed directly into a scoring chance and goal against. Then a combination of Ruutu and Semin failed to get a puck up the ice and deep. It led to a rush the other way and a blast past Khudobin. The difference defensively was Sergei Bobrovsky in net for Columbus. The quality of Carolina's offense was overstated by the shot total boosted by a high number of 'throw the puck at the net for lack of a better option' type of shots. The defensemen had 12 of the 36 shots, and not many were high-quality chances with traffic in front of the net. But the Canes did have some good chances that could have been goals if not for Bobrovsky. After opening up a 2-goal lead, Columbus played a reasonably sound game defensively that mostly gave Bobrovsky a chance.
In watching this game, it had the feel of a number of recent Canes games/stretches:
--Reverse of the previous Columbus loss. The December 23 loss against Columbus featured the Canes outplaying Columbus and then losing late on 2 bad defensive breakdowns. This game featured the 2 defensive breakdowns for goals against early in the game at which point Columbus sat back a bit and made them stand up.
--Nashville win last Sunday. The Canes played the 2nd half of a back-to-back just last Sunday against Nashville and won. The situation was a little different because Nashville also played and traveled the night before, so the Canes were not at a physical disadvantage. The game was similar though with the Canes slogging through that game and not looking very dynamic. The 2 key differences were that Hutton was not great in net for Nashville (while Bobrovsky was) and the Canes were mostly mistake-free versus Nashville (compared to 2 costly early mistakes against Columbus).
--The late December losing streak. But more than anything, this game had a bit of the feel of the late December losing streak. The Canes won the battle in terms of shots but lost the game by shooting itself in the foot with a couple bad miscues.
I joked while yammering on Twitter during the game that I was going to invent a new fancy stat that was not so fancy called 'oopses'. The difference in talent and caliber of play between the winner and loser in most NHL games is very small. And a large percentage of games are decided by 1 goal or 2 at most. Very often the deciding factor is a handful of mistakes that lead directly to goals and win a hockey game. The Canes outshot the Jackets Friday night, but I think 'oopses' were the more the defining statistic in the game. Especially against a team like Columbus that is not so much an offensive juggernaut, if you gift them a couple goals and simultaneously the chance to play a game with which it is comfortable, the chance of winning falls to 25% or less.
But the Canes were not going to win the last 40 games of the season.
The magnitude of this loss will be determined by what the team does next.
After 2 days off, the Canes get a home game against a Calgary team that is in the bottom 3rd of the league and struggling right now. The Flames have lost 6 out of 7 and have been shut out in 5 of those games. The Canes need to clean up the mistakes that create easy offense for the opponent, bring a solid effort and quickly get back in the win column.
A few notes:
--John-Michael Liles. He is settling in nicely. He logged a team high 23+ minutes of ice time, made a handful of defensive zone plays to eliminate scoring chances and was generally good all night.
--Brett Sutter. His turnover led to the all-important 1st goal and continued his string of having too much trouble in his own end to be a regular 4th/checking line center at the NHL level. He is destined for Charlotte as soon as either EStaal or Nash is ready to go.
--Penalty free. The Canes managed a double minor high-sticking penalty on Bellemore (incorrectly charged to Ruutu) that led to what was arguably the game-clinching goal, but that penalty was really more bad luck than carelessness. And as the only power play that the Canes gave up, it is fair to say that the team continued its stretch of staying out of the penalty box.
It is strange for my usually long-winded self to only have a handful of player/individual notes, but I think that kind of tells the story for tonight. The Canes did not sustain enough offensive pressure across any line, stretch of time or anything else to really rave about any individual player or line. At the same time, the team really was not horrible in defeat except for the couple lapses already noted above.
My target for the month of January was a 12-6 record (so collecting 2/3 of the points). The Canes are 4-1 right now and ahead of that pace. A win Monday would put the team a full 2 points ahead of an aggressive pace through the 1st 1/3 of the month.
Monday is the kind of game in which the Canes need to come out and aggressively seize 2 points to get back on track.
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