Team Chemistry is through the Roof
The Carolina Hurricanes are operating as a complete cohesive unit.
Tropic Thunder jokes aside, this team operates and communicates as well as any special operations team I have ever seen. And when it comes to guys like Andrei Svechnikov, they seem to shoot just as well. But more on him later.
There is a reason that the Rangers couldn’t get anything going without a two-man advantage. The Carolina offense continued to put pressure on the offensive zone until they either scored, drew a penalty, or got a whistle while defense managed to suffocate them whenever the Rangers managed to sneak the puck into the zone for some offense.
All three zones of the ice belonged to Carolina. They may be playing in Toronto but the Hurricanes have been taking the home-ice advantage concept straight to the heart. The Rangers were never allowed to set anything up while five on five offensively and even with the man advantage, they were forced to frantically throw the puck on the net where Mrazek could make an easy save.
On defense, the Rangers were lost and Henrik Lundqvist once again stopped this game from being too far out of control until late in the third period. Rangers fans, if you are reading this, your defense is terrible and it starts with the coaching. The Carolina Hurricanes bullied any real attempt at defending against them as they racked up the shots and the goals.
The fourth line obviously has some serious chemistry as Jordan Martinook, Morgan Geekie, and Brock McGinn combined together like some Captain Planet spin-off to generate the third goal of the game that truly sank the Rangers’ hopes for any sort of actual comeback.