How the Carolina Hurricanes Should Spend the Extended Break
The Carolina Hurricanes get more than a few days to lick their wounds after suffering back to back losses in California. Here is how they should spend that time.
Six Days. That’s the amount of time the Carolina Hurricanes have between the Ducks game and the Blue Jackets game. While many of us wish they could have spread out the last five game more to fit over that time, we do not have the ins and outs of the NHL scheduling wizardry, although some wonder if it’s just a headless chicken dancing on top of a keyboard.
Five games in eight days were not kind to the Carolina Hurricanes who went 2-3 in that time span including a pair of back to back losses in the dreaded western time zone. But now that they finally have the time off how will this team figure out a way to get back into the season and cut off the bleeding?
Naturally rest and more practice are the go to answers, but there is more to this. The Carolina Hurricanes need to ensure that they maximize the next six days to ensure that they are working on the right things and not allowing rust to settle in before they continue the season in Columbus against one of the teams they lost to in the past stretch
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If this team wants to get back into the zone they kicked off the season with and get back to the top of the league they will need to dig deep over the next four days or so and get their heads back into the zone. Here are the the top three things they need to accomplish.
Get Healthy
This seems like a duh thing, right? WRONG. Too many times players and fans confuse getting healthy with resting. While resting might help, it’s only a part of what they need to do get back to being healthy. The rest comes from proper diet and exercise to help feed and strengthen the injured muscles.
Take Trevor Van Riemsdyk for example, in his first game back this season after experiencing a scary injury during the second round sweep of the Islanders, during this time he only skated for 11:28 and spending 28 seconds of it shorthanded. While that is expected when rotating seven defenders, Haydn Fleury only saw 5:59, its an indicator that he isn’t 100%.
The next several days should be stretching out those legs some more and getting back into the rhythm of practice and play. Perhaps by the time the team rolls into Ohio there will be a roster move or so that will give TVR a set pairing instead of being the odd man out. But he isn’t the only Carolina Hurricanes injury that needs to take advantage of the next few days.
Erik Haula and Ryan Dzingel not skating at #Canes practice today. Jordan Martinook putting in work rinkside on the assault bike.
— Michael Smith (@MichaelSmithNC) October 20, 2019
While it isn’t realistic to think that Jordan Martinook would be spending the next few days any differently in his road to recovery, Erik Haula and Ryan Dzingel absolutely shood. Not sure why Dzingel is not skating today, but Haula took a nasty hit from Josh Manson that led to a Joel Edmundson dropping the gloves and taking care of business defending his new teammate.
While Rod Brindamour indicated that both will more likely than not be on the roster on Thursday, they need to take the time now to make sure they are 100% before skating in and attempting to silence the cannon.
Work on Special Teams
Okay Caniacs, let’s talk about the special teams. This might be the sole reason the team is not 9-0-0 instead of 6-3-0. Both sides of the special teams need work. While early in the season the powerplay looked stellar and the penalty kill looked impenetrable, the last five games took a deep hit to those numbers.
Currently the Carolina Hurricanes sit 19th (!!) in the league when it comes to converting the power play at 19.2%. They fair slightly better at the kill coming in at 17th in the league stopping opponent conversion at a 78.4%. When those two numbers don’t add up to 100% or more, thats a big indicator that special teams need to be worked on.
Now, I am not an NHL head coach. I do not know what they need to do to improve their powerplay. There seems to be a unit that is out-performing the other on the powerplay and it includes guys like Dougie Hamilton and Erik Haula who have been powerplay scoring machines, these guys need as much time on the ice with the man advantage as possible. The rest is all about set plays they practice.
The kill on the other hand really comes down to winning faceoffs at the right time and properly clearing the puck. Basics. The Carolina Hurricanes seem to be attempting to try and score short handed each time which has led to the puck staying in their zone for far too long and legs getting tired. Just send the puck down the ice and let the other goalie have to work instead.
Mentally Reset
This is by far the most important thing to do over the next several days before going into Columbus. This team has had three losses in the last four games. Ugly losses. While the Columbus game was a one goal game, the go ahead goal that was surrendered when Brock McGinn turned over the puck makes it an ugly loss.
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There was a Hattrick against them in the first period against San Jose. Petr Mrazek got pulled against the ducks. These are not things you can easily brush off. This team is going to need a serious mental reset. Go into the next game knowing that they can course correct and take back the NHL lead. That they are much, much, much better than a 6-3 record.
Honestly if they do NOTHING else, they need to do this. This alone can probably give this team the rejuvenation to take on a relatively easy schedule coming up. Seriously, until they play against Buffalo on the 15th, they do not have a matchup against a team that is currently above 0.500 in points. We could be looking at yet another dashing winning streak that could pole vault this team back to the top where they belong.
Until then they need to take advantage of the extra rest and fix what needs to get fixed while getting the fresh start they need both physically and mentally.
Question for CC Readers: How do you feel about this abnormally large gap in the schedule?
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