Carolina Hurricanes: Rod Brind’Amour does take shootouts seriously

A thirteen second video clip of Carolina Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour seemingly taking a casual attitude about shootouts after a 6-5 loss to the Washington Capitals last Friday set off a tempest in a teapot in Canes Nation. But as usual with anything making the rounds on the Internet, perspective was lacking.

Rod Brind’Amour was addressing why the team’s two most gifted offensive players – Sebastian Aho and Andrei Svechnikov – were absent from a shootout that went six players deep and included the likes of untested rookie Janne Kuokkanen, Brock McGinn and Phil Di Giuseppe. The clip featured the following comment from the Carolina Hurricanes’ Head Coach:

"It’s a specialty point for me. To be honest with you, I don’t put a lot of thought into it. I just kind of went with the flow on that one."

Taken out of context, the quote could be interpreted to imply he doesn’t consider the “bonus” point teams get for winning a shootout as worth putting a lot of effort or thought into. This would be a very short-sighted philosophy for a team like the Hurricanes, who flutter around the cutoff line each season like moths around a porch light.

Any point in the standings is crucial, and Brind’Amour recognizes this, in spite of what he said in the heat of the moment after a demoralizing loss. The Canes work on penalty shots every practice, and the team keeps meticulous stats on who is successful in these practice sessions. Those stats are why he went with defenseman Dougie Hamilton, who scored the team’s only shootout goal despite having been used in a shootout only once before during his career (and he missed that one). Brind’Amour explained his thought process:

"We do that drill in practice every day…We keep putting them out there because they score in practice. That’s really all it was. Sometimes you just get a feel, too."

McGinn led the team with two shootout goals in three tries last year. Jaccob Slavin, who took the second shot in the shootout, made three of seven shots the past two seasons. Di Guiseppe made his only attempt last season.

Brind’Amour went with Kuokkanen, who had just been called up from Charlotte, to take the opening shot in part because Capitals goalie Braden Holtby had no tape of Kuokkanen taking a penalty shot (the same argument could have been made for Svechnikov, but he remained on the bench).

Being a gifted goal scorer does not automatically translate into success on penalty shots, however. Jeff Skinner struggled so badly (0-18 from 2013-14 through the 2016-17 seasons) that former coach Bill Peters kept him on the bench for all the team’s shootouts last season.

Brind’Amour erred badly in not giving a shot to Aho, who was playing at a high level against the Capitals and had slipped a breakaway past Holtby in the first period. If he’s going to go with the flow on shootouts, then it would certainly make sense to choose a player in the midst of a monster four-point game, regardless of what the stats from practice say.

Canes fans should take heart from the fact that, despite overlooking Aho and Svech, there was a method to Brind’Amour’s madness. He has a gameplan, and while it didn’t work this time, we should give him time to prove he knows what he’s doing.