Hurricanes Avalanche Francouz, But Come up Empty Handed
The Carolina Hurricanes put 47 shots on Pavel Francouz only sneaking in two past him on a night that felt like luck wasn’t going our way.
It was Pride Night in Raleigh last night as the Carolina Hurricanes celebrated the LGBTQ+ Community and hosted the Colorado Avalanche. The organization rolled out an excellent representation of the community and tackled one of the most important social issues in our nation.
What happened on the ice after that wasn’t something to be proud of.
For the next sixty minutes the Canes would assault Pavel Francouz with 47 shots on goal and only scoring two goals off the stick of the same player in a night that the players need to be quick to wash away. There were good and bad moments.
The good? Teuvo Teravainen seems to have gotten his scoring touch back and Sebastian Aho tallied two helpers to his finnish wingmate and extended his point streak to 14 games, only three games shy of the record this season. Aho remained nine goals short of the franchise record of 45.
The only other good thing to come from the game was a surprise performance by Anton Forsberg who really only gave up one bad goal to Tyson Jost on the second goal. The first goal was a two on one and the third was a dead slot headhunter. Can’t blame him on those. Otherwise he finishes the game with a Sv% higher than .900. Perhaps Alex Nedeljkovic is in hot water?
But those are far from the only takeaways from the game. It was the final home game of the season and there was much to take in. For one, the home crowd hasn’t seen a win since Valentines day and don’t get to see another Canes game until the 14th as the Hurricanes start an extended road trip tomorrow that will be broken up by a short hockey-less stay at home.
Until then lets break down what happened.
Perfect is the Enemy of Good Enough
Read that headline. Preach it in the Canes Locker room. Yell it from the darn rooftops. Because if they Carolina Hurricanes just stopped trying to be so darn perfect they would win more hockey games.
Last night was no exception. And Teuvo Teravainen is a perfect example of what happens when you do and don’t let perfect be the enemy of good enough.
With the puck on his stick in the dead slot thanks to a good pass from Aho he opted to pass it back to Aho because he didn’t see a perfect shot. But Aho was nowhere from getting a better angle and ended up shooting it at an impossible angle where it was a miracle to just get the shot on net.
Had he just taken the shot and stopped worrying about getting it in perfectly, the title of this article would have been completely different.
To double down on that here is what happens when you just take the shot and let someone else clean up the goal:
Not done yet! pic.twitter.com/IS3HJPXZfh
— Carolina Hurricanes (@Canes) February 29, 2020
Now granted, that is an absolute fluke of a goal, but the point remains. Another good example is late in the closing minutes of the game with an empty net on one end and Jaccob Slavin with the puck on his stick and a perfect opportunity.
Jaccob Slavin saw an Aves player going full neo from the matrix to try and stop the upcoming shot, so what did he do? He tried to make the perfect shot over the falling player instead of just muscling in the puck with a good shot on goal. The result? the puck going up and over the net missing it completely. It now haunts Slavin’s dreams like a nylon Freddy Krueger.
Need more evidence that the Canes are trying to be so damned perfect? They kept hitting the post. Five times. Five times they hit the post. That’s what happens when you are trying to make a perfect shot past the edge of the netminder instead of through him. That’s five goals that could have happened.
Again, this article would be completely different had the Hurricanes opted for accuracy on the net instead of precision in the shot.
Canes Need to Protect Each Other
Ryan Dzingel almost became the sixth injure Hurricane this season (including new Hurricane Sami Vatanen) after taking a scary spill on the boards following a shove from behind. Luckily he came right back into the game the following period and the Hurricanes seemed none the worse for wear.
But it can’t continue happening. Hurricanes have been dropping like flies. That seems to stem from the fact that they aren’t protecting each other from the various angles while keeping their heads on a swivel.
It not only leads to injuries, but to goals against. Take a look at everyone’s favorite scapegoat Jake Gardiner as he fails to corral a difficult bouncing puck at the blue line:
Josty doing the mosty!
— Colorado Avalanche (@Avalanche) February 29, 2020
(📺: @AltitudeTV) #GoAvsGo https://t.co/eVPZVwEA8u
That is not an easy puck to collect and it bounces in such a way that chances are he was going to step on it and slide his foot in the wrong direction and end up hurting himself. Luckily he didn’t step on. Unlucky was that Jost found it and deposited it for his first goal of the night.
Nino Niederreiter and Vincent Trocheck just watched it happen with no hustle and couldn’t get down the ice fast enough to stop the two on one against Trevor van Riemsdyk. That goal is on them as much as it is on Gardiner.
This roster does not have what last year’s roster had, which was a continued chemistry. Three new pieces thrown in at the deadline along with Justin Williams and a pair of new goalies. It might take a week or two for the chemistry to set it, which brings us to our next takeaways.
Half the Roster is Invisible
Where did half this team even go? Outside of the SAT line the rest of the offensive roster is MIA. Jaccob Slavin and newcomer Brady Skjei are the only ones seemingly hustling out there. That is not enough to win games.
It’s been a full week since a Non-SAT forward has scored. In fact about half of goals in the last six games have been scored by Sebastian Aho, Teuvo Teravainen, or Andrei Svechnikov. This cannot be the only scoring you get in a game:
TURBO TIME(S TWO) pic.twitter.com/LHIKe9bbsS
— Carolina Hurricanes (@Canes) February 29, 2020
Does the rest of the roster know they can score? That its allowed? Can someone go tell them?
Add on the lack of defense played by half the roster and you get a recipe for disaster. Look at the game winning goal by Colorado and mark where all the black jerseys are:
We're gonna enjoy this game winner by G for a long time!
— Colorado Avalanche (@Avalanche) February 29, 2020
(📺: @AltitudeTV) #GoAvsGo https://t.co/7XejKY1J5v
If you freeze it just two seconds in, you’ll notice that every single Carolina Hurricane is on the right side of the ice. You can get a better look at the mess at 10 seconds in. Not a single person is within a nautical mile of Sam Girard who looks like he is on a breakaway.
Now correct me if I am wrong, but uh, isn’t there at least one or two bodies that are assigned to the other side of the ice? Like noone should be able to just stroll in off the bench and collect a puck and score like that.
This has been a consistent part of the Hurricanes lazy defense that is costing them games and points. Funny enough, Dougie Hamilton was a huge part of ensuring that someone remained vigilant in the slot. Seems he forgot to teach his coworkers how to do that before he got hurt.
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Luckily for the Carolina Hurricanes the New York Ranger, Columbus Blue Jackets, and Pittsburgh Penguins all lost last night as well, so chalk it all up to a zero move day. This could have been a day for them to move up the standings and secure themselves a wildcard spot, but there is time enough for that tonight against the Canadiens.
For now the Canes need to make sure that they take advantage of their upcoming schedule and use it to seat themselves into a playoff spot. From there anything can happen. We saw it last year and hopefully we can see it again this year. It starts by learning from the mistakes in the last two games and coming out stront to close out February tonight before going into an extended rest before March schedule begins.
Question for CC Readers: What was your biggest takeaway from the game?
Next. Hurricanes need to establish weekend dominance. dark