Carolina Hurricanes: 3 Keys to Resetting in Game 3 vs. Bruins

The Carolina Hurricanes were dismantled and picked apart by the Boston Bruins in Game 2 at TD Garden, losing 2-6, and ultimately 0-2 in the series. They come home to PNC Arena in Raleigh, with two necessary home games and two necessary wins. What do they need to do?

Can the Carolina Hurricanes come home to games 3 and 4 the same way they did against the Washington Capitals? The first two games of the series were not kind to the Hurricanes in either of those two series, but these last two stung worse than the first two of the playoffs.

Game 1 was an iffy game that fans from both the Carolina Hurricanes and Boston Bruins will argue bad officiating, but Game 2 was not close. The Bruins had their way with the Hurricanes almost all night other than the first ten minutes of the first period. The Hurricanes came out strong, but ran out of gas shortly after.

Matt Grzelcyk registered two goals, Charlie Coyle and Torey Krug both put up three assists, and Connor Clifton scored his first National Hockey League goal. Justin Williams and Teuvo Teravainen put up the lone Hurricane goals, to break the shutout and for something to build on for Game 3.

The Bruins have set the tone in this series already, taking their first two home games at TD Garden. Although the Hurricanes are technically not on the brink of elimination, they will be if they do not turn the momentum shift around.

The Hurricanes set the tone in the first 40 minutes of ice time for this series and they let it slip away. The Hurricanes have been good at home, winning every home postseason game so far, they have to use this statistic for confidence to cut this series deficit in half. What do they need to do?

1. Aggressive Forecheck

This was mentioned in the Keys to Game 1, the Tampa Bay Lightning picked the Bruins apart piece by piece with an aggressive forecheck. Tampa Bay would hold onto the puck, dominate possession, and make passes until the Bruin defenders lost energy or made a mistake and they would strike.

We witnessed what the Hurricanes did to the Bruins in the second period of Game 1. They dominated the Bruins, their forecheck was ruthless. They almost scored shorthanded and the Hurricanes would get the tie-breaking goal, to gain the lead. The Hurricanes led 15-10 in shots on goal. The crowd was silent.

The Hurricanes will need to be all over the Bruins in Game 3 and it needs to be consistent. If the Hurricanes can keep the Bruins in their zone, the Bruins will not have the energy to defend, they’ll break from fatigue. If the forecheck is consistent, you can expect bad line changes from the Bruin from exhaustion.

The forecheck all starts from Carolina’s back-end, good defensive-to-offense transitions are required from them. Evidence proves from all of Stanley Cup Playoff hockey and from the home games of the past series, forechecking keeps the fans standing and loud, this will keep the crowd on fire, which the Hurricanes have fed off of.

2. Consistent Discipline

The Hurricanes have shown bad discipline in Game 1 and 2, untimely penalties that punished them. Whether or not the officiating was good, the Hurricanes need to test early on what type of game the officials will call. A strict game where weak calls will be called or a “playoff hockey” type of game.

Once the Hurricanes get a penalty and seeing the severity of it, the Hurricanes need to take that lesson and not continue to take penalties, stay out of the box. If the Hurricanes stayed out of the box in the third period of Game 1, it’s likely they win that game.

Officiating in this season’s playoffs have tended to favor the home team, because the referees like to hear the cheers of a call on the road team. The first round was clear enough of this, the officiating in the Washington-Carolina series, the Tampa Bay-Columbus series, and the San Jose-Vegas series.

The crowd needs to be loud and make their voices heard. If they don’t like a call, they need to boo. If they like a call, they need to cheer. The Hurricanes should expect some nice calls and they need to stay out of the box, because officiating will likely try to make up for Game 1 and 2 and the Hurricanes need to make that job easy for the referees.