Three Takeaways from The Carolina Hurricanes Loss to the New Jersey Devils

The Carolina Hurricanes failed to complete the four game home stand with a win against the ailing New Jersey Devils. Here are the takeaways from the tight loss.

The Carolina Hurricanes come into tonight’s game less than 24 hours after handing the Detroit Red Wings a heavy loss. The confidence in this team was extremely high. There was nothing they couldn’t do. They were just a single win away from completing a perfect home stand. Eight out of the Eight possible points at home.

All they had to do was take care of a New Jersey Devils team that has struggled to generate offense and was averaging over 4 GA per game. Tack on the fact that they have only won two games all season and the fact that they were just humiliated at home by the Flyers (who incidentally are the next matchup) this felt like an easy, no effort game to win.

Well it felt like that Carolina Hurricanes put no effort into the game. While they did hold the lead at two separate points in the first period and went into the locker room at the end of each period tied with their opponent, the entirety of the game, they were playing on their heels. They were forced to play outside of their comfort zone, and couldn’t force their style of play on the devils.

The results speak for themselves:

So what went wrong? Did the Carolina Hurricanes just go into this game with too much expectations or were they just gassed after the wild ride from the night before. The takeaways here aren’t all bad. There are some great one too. That said, there are some lessons to be learned from this game.

The good news is, of teams to lose to and learn lessons from, at least its a team that is currently not a threat to make the playoffs. In comparison to another playoff competitor who may edge us out on positioning.

2. James Reimer Couldn’t Shake Off the Rust

Now for the not so great stories from last night. James Reimer did not look good. At all. Now granted, he is playing behind a depleted tired defensive core which left it all on the ice the previous night. But the thing is, the opposing team was also out on a separate piece of ice all the way up in the Rock last night. So that excuse goes out the window.

I hate trying to put losses all on goalies, especially when the offense simply isn’t clicking or isn’t in the game. We did see some of that last night (more on that later) but three of the four goals that Reimer allowed were completely avoidable.

Rookie Jack Hughes scored his first power play goal of his young career to tie the game at two goals a piece before the end of the first. Honestly that goal was the game shifter. Had Carolina gone into the Locker room at any point in the game with the lead they would have been rejuvenated and came back out with some energy.

What makes that goal hard to look at and mostly on Reimer was that he had the puck, for a split second, but he didn’t close in on it hard enough and it slid past him ever so softly. So softly in fact that it wouldn’t have crossed the goal line on its own. In fact the only person to see the puck, Hughes, had to almost lay out to confirm the kill.

Just a little bit more effort could have changed the course of the game. Well the Devils were the one who came out of the second with a renewed energy and quickly found the lead for the first time in the game on Nico Hischier’s inside outside dangle around Jaccob Slavin:

While the move was filthy and completely undressed Slavin who ended up wondering what was going on and why he was on the same side of the puck as Fogele, James Reimer should have been able to stop this. Not only was he perfectly positioned against Nico Hischier, he had a good look at both the player and the puck for over a second before he took that shot.

Unfortunately Reimer went low while Hischier went high, which he was allowed to do because Reimer was deep in his own net. Had he come out just a little bit to meet the him, he would have cut off any and all shooting lanes and the game would have remained tied at three and perhaps Haula’s game tying goal later would have instead given them the lead.

That is twice in this game that a Reimer miscue led to a goal that changed the tone of the game and forced Carolina to go into the locker room with a tie instead of a lead. Now it’s not all on him of course, but the question becomes, what if it was Petr Mrazek in net instead?

3. No Desperation

Honestly it really isn’t all on the goaltending. This was a total team loss. The Devils wanted it more so they left us empty handed while they flew home with two points. They had the desperation that the Carolina Hurricanes were missing. They played the game like they were down in a playoff series and needed to win no matter what and they were consistently rewarded for it.

Do not get me wrong, the Carolina Hurricanes are the better team on the ice. That is the only way they could have made this came as competitive as it was. But the Devils showed that sometimes effort and hustle beats pure talent. Just look at the game winning goal by P.K. Subban, a defender, from the dead slot on a pass he takes from the blueline:

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That is another avoidable goal by both the goaltender and the defense of this team. That said there should be a lot to be learned from this game. Not everyone was completely devoid of hustle and heart. Brock McGinn earned himself more than a few accolades from Tripp Tracey for his efforts in beating out an icing call and allowing his tired defenders to change out. Ryan Dzingel immediately defended line mate Erik Huala when a devil went after him. Not to mention Svechnikov ready to jump down Wayne Simmonds’ throat.

But all that was not enough to beat this New Jersey Devils team that was adamant that it was going to get its third win of the season last night. The question becomes: Can Carolina take the lessons learned tonight and apply them in the future? Can they move forward past this game?

We will find out when they take on Gritty and the Philadelphia Flyers on Tuesday night at Wells Fargo Center.

Question for CC Readers: Who is more to blame for the loss? James Reimer or the lack of hustle by the rest of the team?