Hurricanes Can’t Solve Rinne, Shut Out by Predators

The Carolina Hurricanes returned home to PNC Arena to face a hungry Central Division team. Backed by a tremendous effort in goal by Pekka Rinne, the Nashville Predators shut out the Carolina Hurricanes by the final score of 3-0. Let’s take a look at three takeaways from Friday’s game.

Coming off a rough 3-2 loss by the New York Rangers on Wednesday night, the Carolina Hurricanes needed a quality game to get back on track. Unfortunately, that did not happen. The Hurricanes struggled all night and failed to get much of anything going.

Early on, this seemed like it was going to be a goalie duel. Petr Mrazek and Pekka Rinne were both stopping everything that came their way. That was, until Rocco Grimaldi scored on what seemed like a harmless dump-out by Nick Bonino that broke the ice. The goal was scored at the 11:45 mark of the first period.

From there, Nashville continued to dominate. Whether it was the Predators’ defensemen that were blocking shots left and right or their forwards that were suffocating Carolina in the offensive zone, they were nearly unstoppable overall.

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As Nashville kept with their offensive possession, eventually holes were bound to be created in the Canes’ defensive efforts. This happened when Calle Jankrok scored from a perfect feed by Filip Forsberg. At this point, it’s 2-0 Nashville late in the first. With that, it just felt Carolina didn’t have a chance.

The game really felt sealed at the 16:32 mark of the 2nd period when Austin Watson scored a great deflection goal on what seemed like a harmless shot by Mattias Ekholm. The play was developed when Ekholm distanced himself from Jordan Martinook (who slipped while attempting to play around him).

This game is one Carolina will hope to soon forget. The entire game felt one-sided with little to no momentum throughout. What’s done is done, so let’s take a look at three takeaways from Friday night’s game.

Lack of Intensity From Carolina

After failing on the comeback attempt in New York on Wednesday night where they saw themselves down 3-0 at one point, it was very important that Carolina came out of the gate strong. To be fair, they started well, but that quickly changed. Nashville played with the exact intensity that Carolina desperately needed, and the results definitely back that up.

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We can start by discussing the power play. Coming into tonight’s game, Carolina’s power play has been pretty good recently, good for 8th best in the league. They had three opportunities tonight and did not score. The first opportunity was easily the best, with Rinne standing on his head. As for the others, lifeless would be putting it lightly.

When it comes to 5-on-5 play, it was very one-sided, and certainly not in favor of the Carolina Hurricanes. While they had flashes of grade-A chances, they just couldn’t bury them. Besides those few chances, Carolina was very flat in this game. Nashville played to their strengths and had Carolina chasing nearly the entire game.

A quick look at the upcoming schedule will show just how important this game was for Carolina. With some tough opponents on the horizon, it was important to play a solid game and get a much needed two points against a team that has struggled this month. The Hurricanes failed to play with the needed intensity to win this hockey game and were outplayed in just about every facet of the game.

Penalty Kill Continued to Dominate

This game was pretty bad overall, but instead of just focusing on the negative aspects of this game, there was one positive that I felt is definitely worth mentioning. The penalty kill was very good tonight. Something that has been a strength for Carolina for many seasons continued to show why in tonight’s game.

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Coming into tonight’s matchup against the Predators, Carolina’s penalty kill had successfully killed off 11 out of 13 total chances in the last 5 games. They were ranked 8th in the league, killing off 83.7% of the penalties they had taken. They needed the special teams to come up big in this one, and it was the penalty kill that shined for the team tonight, in a game where there wasn’t much of any positives overall.

The Hurricanes were very undisciplined in this game, taking too many penalties overall. The good thing is, the penalty kill came up big when it mattered. They successfully killed off all four penalties they took tonight and did so with relative ease. Nashville had some great looks on their first power play opportunity, but the most important penalty killer, Petr Mrazek, shut them down.

Even with Nashville’s power play not being very good so far this season, it’s always important to play any team strong when you’re down a man. Carolina definitely achieved that tonight, and it was certainly worthy of a mention. With all the negative things we can takeaway from this game, at least there was one positive aspect that continued to dominate.

Next Game: At Tampa Bay on November 30th