The path behind has not been very good of late. The task ahead looks (and might actually be) impossible. But there is tonight.
And tonight, when taken by itself, was a good 1 for Canes fans who are still hanging in there. The Canes played a pretty good Rangers team who is currently sitting in a playoff spot and beat them soundly. The score was not incredibly lopsided, but the Canes were the better team all night and earned a solid 3-1 victory in the process. The Canes were not so much phenomenal as they were incredibly consistent. The softness in the neutral zone that has been a common problem in many of the recent losses was nowhere to be found on Tuesday night. The Canes allowed nothing for speed through the middle of the ice and had stretches in which they stymied rush after rush. In my opinion, it was this difficulty to play against factor that has been lacking too many nights that was the most important ingredient in the win.
And as hard (and fair at the same time in my opinion) as I have been on individual players of late, it is a good night to give credit where it is due in terms of player notes:
--Cam Ward. The defense gave him a manageable game, but he also answered the call when needed especially early when the game was scoreless. After looking decent in a short relief appearance on Saturday, Tuesday's win was even better and another step in the right direction.
--Tlusty/JStaal/Semin. That line was flat out dominant and in a game with plenty of star power, they were the best line on the ice all night. 2 goals is obviously solid production, but they were equally good without the puck.
--Ryan Murphy. Most encouraging to me was a small thing. I caught 2 instances of him starting to fly down the ice and using the slight turn to set up a defenseman to move the puck forward on the other side of them and make for an easy entry into the offensive zone for a forward with speed and space. While rushing end to end is exciting, I think this ability to back defenders up with speed, attract attention, move the puck to a rushing forward and then support the puck by following it into the offensive zone is a key transition point from juniors where raw speed just let him do whatever he wanted and go wherever he wanted. He played another generally good game logging 23+ minutes of ice time.
--Elias Lindholm. Good for him scoring a big goal in the 3rd period to push the lead to 2. Credit also to Jeff Skinner on that goal for passing up an odd angle shot and instead forcing his way to the net. It was not the stereotypical pretty/flashy Skinner scoring point but rather was an aggressive power forward type play which made it all the more impressive.
--The defense in total. Mike Komisarek had a tough night again too many times turning pucks over in his own end (hence his limited 9:50 of ice time), but the other 5 defensemen to a man were pretty good. Of special note was their ability to defend the prime scoring areas pretty well against skilled snipers in St. Louis and Nash.
Up next is another home game of the winnable variety against Buffalo and another chance to revel in the night ignoring for 2 1/2 hours what happened before or what happens next.
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