Carolina Hurricanes: 5 Unanswered Questions after a Questionable November

Is Mrazek Starting to get Outplayed by James Reimer?

Now a month ago I would have laughed at this argument. Now I am making it. Honestly we wouldn’t even have to go that far, two weeks maybe. But there is now enough evidence to suggest that Carolina might have to go back to the style of goalie play they had last season; play the hot hand.

Let’s look at the stats of these two gentlemen over the last two outings for them each shall we?

Petr Mrazek in his last two games against the Predators and Rangers stopped 41 of 47 shots for a 3 GAA and 0.872 save percentage. That isn’t good. And perhaps there is more to these stats than just the numbers. These two games did come after news about a certain former coach. But more on that later.

James Reimer on the other hand in his last two games against the Tampa Bay Lightning and Detroit Red Wings stopped 55 of 57 shots for a 1 GAA and 0.965 save percentage. Now based on these stats alone Reimer is coming out on top recently. But like I said earlier there is more to this than simply numbers.

Mrazek didn’t seem to be getting the support he usually does those games and Reimer has been playing with a chip on his shoulders and perhaps now one in his skate blade. That all said, its an unanswered question that might take all of December to help us figure out who truly deserves to be the number one goalie when we take this into summer Hockey.