Carolina Hurricanes: Three Keys to Victory vs. Tampa Bay
The Tampa Bay Lightning roll into Raleigh tonight as the Carolina Hurricanes look to gain their first win of 2020. Here’s what the Canes need to do to secure two more points in the standings tonight.
The Carolina Hurricanes are coming off of an incredibly frustrating one-goal loss against the Washington Capitals on January 3rd.
This season has been a very up-and-down season for the Carolina Hurricanes; the Canes manage to string a few wins together, followed almost immediately by a string of frustrating losses.
Tonight, however, I believe that trend changes. Justin ‘The Savior of Raleigh’ Williams rumors aside, the Carolina Hurricanes have a real chance here to not only stop a skid before it happens, but to beat a very good hockey team for a third time this season.
The last time the Bolts played the Canes was November 30th; the Carolina Hurricanes left the Amalie Arena that night the victors in a 3-2 hockey game.
If the Carolina Hurricanes manage a win tonight, they will have effectively swept last year’s President’s Trophy winners in the regular season; the Bolts are very susceptible to that, after all.
You’ve heard all of these before, but this seems to be the trend this season. In order to pull off a win and the regular season sweep, the Carolina Hurricanes will have to stay committed to playing solid defense throughout the entire game, find a way to score on the powerplay more consistently, and please (for the love of all things hockey) STAY. OUT. OF. THE. BOX. Let’s dive in.
1. Play Solid Defense the Full 60 Minutes
The Carolina Hurricanes have become notorious this season for a few select things, but none more glaringly so than not playing a full 60 minutes, as well as how prone the Canes’ blueline is to make costly mistakes.
To be absolutely fair, I am not singling out any specific player(s); I don’t feel like these mistakes lie within one single person. Problems like this are rarely attributable to a single guy, no matter how much Canes FB wants you to hate Jake Gardiner or how badly they want to trade Dougie Hamilton.
That being said, there are a few problems on the Carolina Hurricanes blueline that need to be sorted out sooner rather than later. Pinching up-ice at the most inopportune moments, fumbling easily receivable passes, being a generally slow skater, and getting dispossessed at the blueline are problems that this defensive corps should not be having.
Leave it to the Carolina Hurricanes to have these kinds of issues despite boasting arguably the best defensive lineup in the league. That isn’t to say that the Canes are doing everything wrong. The problems that exist, however, are costing the team dearly on both the scoresheet and the league tables.
The Carolina Hurricanes’ blueliners absolutely need to regroup and find their groove again; otherwise, we may very well be outsiders looking in come late April. Now, for an even more costly issue: the powerplay.
2. Find Consistency on the Powerplay
The man advantage is a spectre that is going to seemingly haunt the Carolina Hurricanes in their current era of success and relevancy.
The Carolina Hurricanes draw nearly as many penalties as they take, and yet they still just can’t seem to get the puck in the back of the net on the powerplay.
This problem, much like the others I mentioned earlier, just simply should not be present given the talent now present in the Canes’ lineup.
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The Carolina Hurricanes have arguably one of the best offensive defensemen in the league in Dougie Hamilton, bona fide superstars in Sebastian Aho, Andrei Svechnikov, and Teuvo Teravainen, and absolute snipers like Ryan Dzingel and Martin Necas all seeing a ton of time on the powerplay.
Yet, potentials and outlooks be damned, the Carolina Hurricanes are wildly inconsistent with the man advantage, despite having the 6th best powerplay percentage in the league at 24.2%.
The Carolina Hurricanes seem to score on the powerplays that aren’t as important; if they’re in the lead, or if the game is tied early on, they seem to be able to score on the powerplay with little to no problems.
If the Canes are behind, or if they get a man advantage opportunity late in the game, however, they seem to find a way to make even the most average of goalies look like the second coming of Jacques Plante.
The final key is probably the most important, as it has seemingly been the nail in the coffin of more than one Hurricanes loss this season: the Canes’ have worn tracks to the penalty box in just about every game this season.
3. Stay. Out. Of. The. Box. Please.
I’m not sure how much clearer I can be about this one.
The Carolina Hurricanes have had nothing short of a love affair with the penalty box this season (as my fellow writer @destraa19k has mentioned).
This troubling trend of penalties per game absolutely cannot continue. Not only is this a problem that could keep the Carolina Hurricanes out of the playoffs, but if they do end up making it again this season, could easily spell doom for them again, a la the Eastern Conference Finals in the 2019 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
I will be the first to admit that the Canes have had more than their fair share of the absolutely horrific officiating that the NHL has decided to put out on the ice this season, but I’d be willing to wager that the Canes have taken just as many blatant penalties as they’ve had horrible penalties called against them.
What better night than tonight to start turning these things around? The Tampa Bay Lightning aren’t a bad team by any stretch of the word, and if the Canes can do it against the Bolts, they should be able to break the mold and apply the new template of discipline to their other games as well. Only time will tell. Hopefully when Justin Williams returns, he’ll bring a much-needed air of discipline back to the bench.
23. 4. 109. Prediction. 2
Game Notes
- Puck Drop: 5:00pm EST
- Location: PNC Arena
- TV: Fox Sports Carolinas, NHL.TV
- Radio: 99.9 The Fan
- Uniform: Home Reds
- Potential Lines:
- Svechnikov – Staal – Foegele
- Niederreiter – Aho – Teravainen
- Dzingel – Haula – Necas
- McGinn – Wallmark – Martinook
- Slavin – Hamilton
- Gardiner – Pesce
- Fleury – Edmundson
- Potential Goalie Matchup
- Carolina Hurricanes: James Reimer
- Tampa Bay Lightning: Andrei Vasilveskiy
Canes' Attendance Has Skyrocketed This Season. light. Trending
Question for CC Readers: Does Justin Williams announce his return tonight?