SCHEDULING/TV NOTE: Tonight's Canes game is at 7:30pm on NBCSN not the usual Fox at7pm, so adjust your plans and/or DVRs accordingly.
The Canes enter Tuesday's home matchup against the Flyers with their losing streak suddenly at 5 games, and any kind of trend analysis yields little positive:
--After a 2-1 loss to start the streak and a few games where the Canes were seemingly in the game, the wheels mostly came off against the Rangers on Saturday with a 5-1 thumping at the hands of a team at the bottom of the league in terms of scoring.
--Justin Peters has now lost 5 consecutive NHL starts this year, 9 straight if you reach back to 2012-13 and a whopping 15 out of his last 16. Chip Alexander from the N&O reported yesterday that he will get the start Tuesday.
--Anton Khudobin's recovery seems to be progressing at a real slow pace, so unless Muller finally relents and tries something else, Canes fans are probably looking at a few more games of trying to somehow pull out a win against current odds with Peters in net.
On the more optimistic front, Tuesday does present what is seemingly a winnable game. The Flyers are 4-9-0 and below the Canes in the Metro Division. The team is also minus Steve and possibly Vincent Lecavalier who were both injured in the fighting debacle in the team's 7-0 loss to Washington on Saturday that saw Ray Emery do all he could to support the argument that fighting in hockey is barbaric. The Flyers rebounded with a 1-0 win in their next game, so they are right now trying to convince themselves that the 7-0 thrashing and fights that ensued were the low point and represented a turning point for their season. And if you think Canes captain Eric Staal's scoring struggles are epic, Flyers captain Claude Giroux has exactly 0 goals through 13 games.
I would love nothing more than for the Canes to help set the Flyers back on the track they were previously on and get on a new one themselves.
Much like the "stay with the program," "stick through the system," "push through it", etc. mantra Muller shows by dogmatically sticking with Justin Peters in net, practice yesterday had Tlusty/EStaal/Semin back together. Skinner is still out though Dvorak seems to be likely to join the 4th line in Sutter's spot. He was returned to Charlotte.
The keys to the game as I see them are:
1) Build a foundation/gain some confidence. On the front part of the current losing streak, the Canes just looked like they were some combination of not good and unable to buy a break. But in the past 2 losses, the term "fragile" has begun to rear its ugly head again. Against Tampa, the Canes played decent hockey and were even at the midway point when a fluky goal founds its way off the end boards, off Peters' back side and into the net. From that point forward the Canes looked out of sorts and only managed to punch back after the game was more or less over. The Rangers game similarly looked too much like 2012-13 where once it turned a little bit bad, the spiral to worse immediately ensued.
The Canes would greatly benefit from building a bit of confidence early and not go straight to battling the inner demons early in the game. Scoring 1st would be a nice surprise and big help in this regard. Peters needs to look good early, so the team and the game does not have this air of "when is this bad thing going to happen" hanging over it from early on.
2) When cornered attack don't turtle. Despite the win in their last game, the Flyers are not a great hockey team right now either. In the 1st meeting the Canes dominated the game despite winning on 2-1. The Canes need to come out with that same attacking mentality and get after it. There is offense to be had against this team, but the Canes need to go get it not play in a timid shell of self-doubt.
I know it is short list of keys to the game and incredibly light on Xs and Os and matchup/strategy stuff compared to what I usually write. Where the Canes are now, it is much more about how the team reacts to the adversity it is facing right now out of the gate and even more so how it reacts to adversity inside the game.
If this game starts slow or goes badly, I will also be watching to see how Muller reacts. It is tough winning games in the NHL with your #3 goalie in net. And the top offensive players for the Canes are not getting it done. But fair or unfair, it is on the coach to try to pull some levers in situations like this to eek out some kind of progress in the standings until easier times arrive. The 2012-13 Carolina Hurricanes under Kirk Muller had absolutely no answer in this regard. So far the 2013-14 Carolina Hurricanes under Kirk Muller have no answer in this regard. We did see Kirk Muller indirectly chuck the Staals and possibly a couple other leaders under the bus after a loss commenting how the other teams' best players were on the score sheet. We saw a very brief effort to go all in and ice a Staal/Staal/Semin line, though at least per practice that seemed to be short-lived. But at least the public version of Muller's comments are along of the lines of "staying the course", "sticking to the system", etc. But here's the thing. The system is not working. The current course is toward a high draft pick. And the arrival of an NHL goalie might not be soon enough.
I voted for:
--#FreeMikeMurphy in place of Peters. I honestly have no idea if it is better, but I think the team is at the point where Muller needs to make a statement to the team that we need do something different not just try to eek a tiny bit better out of what is not working. I think that continuing to start Peters game after game despite no winning results puts the team on a path to just riding the current vibe up until the point where either Ward or Khudobin returns, and that is too far out.
--EStaal/Semin. I am now about a week into voting to temporarily separate the duo to see if can get 1 or both going and maybe even someone like JStaal in the process (if paired with someone like Semin who just might help him net an easy goal or 2). When we are mixing and matching players because the current line combinations are not working, why is the pairing that has been the most disappointing of all this season exempt?
It might seem a bit early in the season for me to go all fire and brimstone, but I really think there is a chance that entire season could hang in the balance right now. The Canes play their next 5 games at home. It is theoretically a favorable stretch of schedule that should see the team moving up in the standings. Following this stretch comes a challenging stretch of 4 games against top-tier teams (Bos, @Bos, @Det, @StL) with 3 on the road. If the Canes go say 1-4 in the 5 at home and then struggle in the next 4, the team will suddenly be 9 games under .500 and 23 games into the season looking at a big hole to try to climb out of just to get in range of the playoff chase.
I am not suggesting that the Canes need to win out at home, but at some point real soon the team needs to start treading water instead of flat drowning.
Does tonight's matchup against bottom-dwelling Philadelphia present a life preserver or just more water?
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