3 Takeaways from the Carolina Hurricanes 3-0 Shut Out Win Over Arizona

The Carolina Hurricanes shut out the Arizona Coyotes to improve to 4-2-0 on the home stand. What led to their success?

In the sixth game of their seven game home stand, the Carolina Hurricanes shut out the Arizona Coyotes 3-0 in a total team effort. Getting a solid performance up and down the lineup, the Canes played a solid 60 for the first time in a while and improve to 4-2-0 on the home stand in the process.

While there were a lot of notable storylines throughout the game, the play of Jake Gardiner of late has to be encouraging. In the dog house of fans a bit early on, he’s started to put together a string of solid performances of late. Finishing the night with an assist, it’s possible we could see Jake provide the team with an impact similar to the one Dougie Hamilton did this time last year during the playoff push.

Aside from Gardiner’s performance, the speed and forechecking game of the Hurricanes seemed to have caused the Coyotes a lot of trouble. The Canes were continuously causing turn overs near the offensive blueline, leading to quality chances for. If it wasn’t for the solid play of Antti Raanta, and some bad luck with the post, Carolina could have easily found the back of the net a few more times.

Speaking of bad puck luck, Nino Niederreiter still can’t buy a goal right now. In what has been a disappointing season for him offensively, Nino had several grade A chances throughout the contest but just came up short once again. Even though he isn’t scoring, he’s still finding way to help the team defensively which is a good sign. Although he is visibly frustrated, if he sticks with it good things are bound to happen.

With these things in mind, what were the major contributing factors in the Carolina Hurricanes shut out victory?

Solid Start

After giving up the game’s first two goals early in the first period of each of the past three games, good for a combined 9-2 deficit in the first ten minutes of those contest, the Hurricanes wanted to get off to a better start. You never want to trail in a game and when you’re playing from behind that early repeatedly it starts to become more mentally taxing than anything.

Finally breaking the trend, the Hurricanes came out with a jump in their step, testing Raanta early. Outshooting the Yotes 13-11 in the first, the Canes looked the better team from the drop of the puck and continued their great play throughout the period.

While they didn’t score on their power play, they did manage to generate a few semi-decent chances. That positive momentum continued into the penalty kill, after Niederreiter took an unnecessary offensive zone penalty, when Sebastian Aho almost capitalized on a short handed breakaway after a solid self pass.

Soon after Nino’s penalty expired, Andrei Svechnikov found Warren Foegele infront of the net with a beautiful pass. Foegele wasted no time putting home, giving the Canes an early 1-0 lead.

While they went into the intermission up by a goal, their lead could have been more. A few minutes in to the game Brett Pesce pinched at the right time and beat Raanta just not the post. Later on in the period, Erik Haula had an excellent defensive play that almost directly led to an absolute snipe of a goal, but unfortunately he too was bested by the cross bar.

10’s All Around

Scoring the first goal of the game gave Warren a total of ten on the year. Later on in the game two more Hurricanes’ forwards would go on to pot their 10th of the season as well.

With a little less than two minutes to go in the second, Lucas Wallmark’s high hockey IQ was on full display when he perfectly tipped a Hamilton point shot for his tenth of year, giving the Canes a two goal lead. This goal was a result of a set face-off play in which everyone on the fourth line played a part.

Shortly after Martin Necas‘ speed was on full display when he scored his 10th of the year with less than ten seconds to go in the period. With each and every game we’re seeing Necas grow into a star player and that has to be really encouraging for both the stretch run and the future.

The Hurricanes now have seven players with ten or more goals and a few more not far behind. With Justin Williams making his season debut soon, it goes without saying that this may be the deepest forward group we’ve seen in Raleigh in a very long time, and quite possible ever.