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 Standout Players

The Carolina Hurricanes had a few excellent standout players

There were three to four players yesterday that stood head and shoulders over everyone else. These guys played at a high level and showed that they wanted to be there while many others seemed to be slow starters.

There were also some midway players that seemed noticeable at times such as Nino Niederreiter, who wanted to get on the scoreboard desperately last night. Ryan Dzingel showed some flashes of greatness as well as he almost got on the board a few times on pucks that stayed out because of luck rather than skill.

Morgan Geekie also showed up, especially on the powerplay, with some excellent play to keep the Capitals occupied, but more on that later.

The guys that really stood out last night were Haydn Fleury, Vincent Trocheck, Sami Vatanen, and James Reimer. I will cover the netminding in the next section so let’s table Reimer for now and focus on the three skaters.

Haydn Fleury, clearly not satisfied with being the seventh defender, made an impact on the game yesterday afternoon and was a big factor in ensuring that the Washington Capitals not only had a hard time staying in the offensive zone but also had some difficulty keeping the Hurricanes out of their defensive zone as well.

He was the only defender to finish the game with a net positive plus/minus, which while isn’t an indicating statistic, is still impressive considering he played over five minutes on the penalty kill, more than any other player. He is growing more and more into a shutdown defender with the ability to turn up the ice. Expect him to have earned a roster spot come Sunday.

Vincent Trocheck also showed up big time yesterday. Not only did he score the first Carolina Hurricanes goal since March but he also played a complete offensive game with both powerplay and penalty kill time. His goal was a combination of skill, vision, and pure hustle to get to that loose puck before anyone else:

He has definitely earned the 2C role in Rod Brind’amour’s eyes. Only Sebastian Aho and Teuvo Teravainen had more TOI as forwards.

Speaking players with a lot of time on the ice, in his first time playing as a Carolina Hurricane, Sami Vatanen racked up over 20 minutes, more than any other player. While he was kept off the scoreboard, he showed off an impressive weapon in his ability to fire the puck like a cannon both dangerously and accurately.

That will be important against a team like the Rangers who boast excellent netminding to try and blast one past whomever they set in the net before they get the chance to adjust.

But what about our own Netminding?

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…