Carolina Hurricanes: Three Takeaways From the Loss To Washington

The Carolina Hurricanes lost a 3-2 game against Washington

The Carolina Hurricanes dropped their one and only exhibition game yesterday afternoon against the Washington Capitals. Here are the takeaways from the loss.

Hockey in July. For the first and hopefully last time in Carolina Hurricanes history the puck dropped for an exhibition game between the Canes and Capitals in Toronto. It was a historic match-up between two division rivals in a game with zero implications. Somehow it seems as if these two teams missed the memo.

This was probably a very good preview for what could be a promising first-round series, granted we get past The New York Rangers next week. The level of play and competition was a bit higher than expected for an exhibition game with no real-world implications and the final score, while disappointing, reflected a game that was played to its full extent.

If you felt that the effort yesterday wasn’t what you wanted to see from the Carolina Hurricanes, you aren’t alone. Coach Rod Brind’amour did not mince words when describing what he saw and where his expectations are moving forward with this team:

“I didn’t like too much, to be honest with you. I thought the third period was a little better. We started, I felt like, getting to more what our game should look like.” “I expected to be rusty, and we saw that in the first, really, two periods. That concerns a little, but I liked the fact that it looked like by the third we got our legs. … Overall, I think it’s just good to get the rust off. We’ll have some good teaching clips for tomorrow, and hopefully the rust is off as we move on.”

But before we move on, let’s take some of the good takeaways from the game as well and hopefully build on them as we prepare for the New York Rangers.

The Goaltending Battle Rages On

The Carolina Hurricanes got two different goaltending efforts

Petr Mrazek started the game and played up until the next whistle once the 10 minute cutoff of the second period passed. Unluckily for him, that happened as Alex Ovechkin ripped a shot past him for his second goal of the game. That sunk his save percentage down to 0.813 as he saved 13 of the 16 shots he saw.

To be fair, Mrazek did not play a bad game. The first goal against was a traditional Ovi slapper on the powerplay from the left dot. He had just saved one of those shots before the Capitals managed to keep the puck in the zone and feed it back to Ovechkin once again. Saving one of those shots is hard. Two in such a short time is a pure miracle.

The defense simply didn’t do enough to get that puck out. Luckily it was the only powerplay goal for the Capitals. The Hurricanes definitely improved on the kill afterward.

The second goal came on a tic tac toe goal from Ovechkin to Evgeny Kuznetsov who was left wide open to the right of Petr. Why Joel Edmondson didn’t bully Kuznetsov from that spot on the ice will forever be an unsolved mystery and will probably appear in the next episode of 60 minutes.

When James Reimer came into the game, the tone of the game shifted. Perhaps it had something to do with the man in the net, but honestly, the defense played a much cleaner game. The Capitals only managed to muster another nine shots which Reimer had an answer for each and every one:

The other end of the ice also got busier as the Hurricanes began to play defense by offense type of game that needs to be implemented against the Rangers. The Capitals began to commit for penalties and Teravainen netted the second goal of the game for the Carolina Hurricanes on the powerplay. Speaking of which…

Special Teams Efforts

The Carolina Hurricanes showed serious effort on the special teams.

Both the Carolina Hurricanes and the Washington Capitals each got five powerplays. There was also a full two minutes of four on four play as coinciding penalties sidelined a player from each team. For an exhibition game, there were a lot of penalties, both called and uncalled.

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While both teams managed only a single goal on their powerplays, the Carolina Hurricanes were the better team on special teams. The Capitals scored theirs early due to Alex Ovechkin being Alex Ovechkin, but the Carolina Hurricanes scored due to an excellent push and could have scored more had lady luck showed up to root for them instead.

Now I am not saying that a bit more skill and talent couldn’t have helped the Carolina Hurricanes and their powerplay, it most obviously could have, but a bit more luck would have more than likely changed the outcome of the game.

Ryan Dzingel had a few excellent looks during the four on four play that took both a bad bounce and hit the post. Brock McGinn had an incredible shorthanded breakaway that beat Braden Holtby but went just wide. At one point Andrei Svechnikov looked like he was going to treat us to something incredible, but ended up with a more traditional power move from behind the net.

The kill was simply fantastic. That Ovechkin goal aside, the Carolina Hurricanes took off seconds from the penalty clock like a kid ripping mushrooms off a pizza. The Capitals had to rely on bounces and simply being in the right place at the right time.

All in all, there is still a lot of good things to take away from this game that will have to be incorporated and built upon when the puck drops on Saturday for real and the money is on the table.