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Canes at Los Angeles Kings mini-preview

October 23, 2015, 1:28 PM ET [7 Comments]
Matt Karash
Carolina Hurricanes Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Seeking their first winning streak of the season, the Canes take on the Kings tonight. The Kings enter with only a 3-3-0 record but are playing better than that with 3 consecutive strong wins in with only 1 goal allowed in each.

From the Canes side, this game represents the test that they have failed miserably a couple times already. The Kings are a strong forechecking team with some size and ability to dial up the intensity, pressure and physicality. In attempt 1 versus this, the Canes were dominated in a 4-1 loss to Florida even though Florida was playing the second half of a back-to-back. And last weekend against a balanced Caps team that has a bit of everything, the result was another Canes whooping.

Right out of the gate, I am looking for 3 ingredients that suggest the Canes have a chance:

1) Cam Ward. He is coming off 2 strong games in net including a shutout in Colorado on Wednesday. It will probably take another strong outing from him for the Canes to collect points.

2) Puck movement. So far in 2015-16, these strong forechecking teams have been able to eat the Canes alive with Canes getting hemmed in, turning over pucks trying to exit the defensive zone or best case just fighting to center ice only to dump the puck and play defense again. The Canes need to be much faster at getting the puck moving north-south out of their own end, so they can back up the defense in the neutral zone a bit; otherwise the forecheck presses even farther forward and this looks like a repeat of the Florida and Washington games.

3) More offense. I think this is directly linked to #2. With no ability to generate any speed through the neutral zone, the Canes forwards just are not getting enough decent scoring chances. The forwards in total had 11 shots on goal through regulation in Colorado on Wednesday which only wins hockey games when your goalie pitches a shutout like Ward did that night.

The other wild card is that the Kings did play last night, so there is a chance that the Canes catch a stretch of hockey either at the beginning of end of this game where they have an advantage. Key is to seize such an opportunity and capitalize on the score sheet.

The Canes enter tonight's game with a solid 2-1 mark for the first 3 games of the current 7-game road trip. A win or even an OTL point would assure that the Canes exit this weekend 5 games deep into the road trip with at least half the points and with a bonus opportunity in San Jose on Saturday.

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Go Canes!
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