Carolina Hurricanes Blank the Red Wings to Open the Season
The Carolina Hurricanes take the first of a two-game visit to Detroit.
The Carolina Hurricanes kept Detroit off the scoreboard with a 3-0 shutout win that started their bid at the 2020-2021 season with an epic win.
What a way to open up the season. Here I am sitting on my couch, tuned into the Fox Sports Go App, snuggled up in my Jeff Skinner Jersey (I will not be renaming this one), the dog curled up between my feet, a cold one in one hand, a burger in the other, and for the first time since August, there is Canes Hockey on my TV.
This was a gem of a game folks. Now it wasn’t a complete game, there were plenty of ways this could have gone wrong and this article would be a sad one, but it didn’t and this article will absolutely be a joyous one. After all, the Carolina Hurricanes are now tied with just under half the league for first place with two points
3. 109. 0. 72. Final
So what stood out in the first sixty minutes of regulation NHL hockey in ten months for these Canes?
The answer is a lot. There is so much to celebrate and a few things to want to consider working on before the next game on Saturday.
Let’s get that out of the way first. 40+ shots on a goalie and only two get past him is not exactly a good look for a team looking to start off strong (the third goal was an empty net scored by Andrei Svechnikov). Hats off to Thomas Griess, but you want to pick your spots a little better and not let the netminder get comfortable between the pipes.
Another thing that needed refinement is the puck control in your own zone. I’ll put the blame on the shifty ice at Little Caesars Arena, but if it wasn’t for a strong defensive effort and some key plays by Petr Mrazek, this game could have gone the other way.
Now onto the good stuff.
Contributions from The Guys that Struggled Last Year
The game-winning goal of the night belongs to Nino Niederreiter, who struggled to buy a goal last season only scoring 11 in 67 games played. Considering he took 115 shots in that campaign, it wasn’t for a lack of trying.
This year he tried something a little different right out of the gate. He showed some patience with the puck, recognized that the Red Wings were just going to all watch him for 5 seconds, and completely embarrassed Thomas Greiss to score the only goal needed to win the game.
https://twitter.com/Canes/status/1349923012984889345
It was good to see Nino start his year off strong. Sebastian Aho also got a point on that play to start his campaign for points this season.
But that seemed to be the only scoring happening all game. It came only 3:38 into the first period and then we got nothing but crickets for the next 53:48 of the game as both netminders decided to have a little duel, which was heavily tilted at the Red Wings end of the ice.
But then with only 2:34 left in the game, Ryan Dzingel does something that seemed nearly impossible last season. He scored on the power play.
Now Ryan isn’t a stranger to powerplay goals. He had four of them last year in the 64 games he suited up for. But considering those were mostly early in the season and accounted for half his goal totals last year, this one was worth its weight in gold.
Just as a five-on-three opportunity expires and Jake Gardiner lofts a heavy shot at the net from the blue line that Ryan finds with his stick and redirects it cleanly behind Griess. Martin Necas who moved the puck over to Jake also secured his first point of the season.
It also shut the door on the Red Wings who thought they had a whisper of hope to get back into this game and at least salvage a point out of it. Turns out that was just the noise that Peter’s glove makes as he continues to steal their dreams away.
Also of note is the fact that Teuvo Teravainen earned an assist on the empty netter by Svechnikov making him one of the seven Hurricanes currently on a point per game pace.
Petr Mrazek with a Perfect Night
It’s easy to look at the mere 14 shots taken by Detroit and assume that Petr spent most of the night finishing that book he started on the flight up to the Motor City. After all the Carolina Hurricanes more than tripled that total at the other end of the ice.
But it would be discrediting to say that he didn’t have a quality night. When a defense as tout as Carolina’s continues to play shutdown defense in front of you, the only shots that you are going to see are the high-quality ones that the defense relies on you to stop.
Even Rod Brind’amour in his post-game brief noted that the team “relied on [Petr Mrazek] too much”. He didn’t have to stand on his head, but he did have a game and a start to the season that he will be fond of and will look to continue that on Saturday when the team jumps into game two of the two-game set.
https://twitter.com/Canes/status/1349936366860308480
Before I move on to the next takeaway from this game, let’s talk about the netminding on the other end of the ice again. Greiss skated away as the second star of the game. A meaningless accomplishment in the grand scheme of things, but still, a testament to his play considering Mrazek, with the shutout, came in third (Nino was the first star).
The Carolina Hurricanes racked up close to a full five on the Expected Goals (xG) range. This tells us two things. The first is that the Carolina Hurricanes could have absolutely run away with this game had it been someone else in the net. They simply need to continue with this offensive tenacity for the next fifty-five games.
The second thing this tells us is that this was a complete effort and domination of the Red Wings. Thomas Greiss deserves to carry his head up for keeping it a one-goal game for virtually the whole game.
But there was more to this game than just shots and saves. Remember in my storyline article where I mentioned that there would be a physical presence to this game? Well, it reared its ugly head.
The Red Wings Tried to Mess Around and the Canes Got Physical
Before we talk about the fight (I’m such a tease, I know) let’s talk about the complete play by the entirety of the defense. From Haydn Fleury to Jake Gardiner, every defender stepped up and snuffed every attempt by the Red Wings to generate any sort of meaningful offense helping Mrazek secure his first donut of the season and the team come up big.
But it was more than just stick play and blocks. They showed up with the body and put the Red Wings on notice from the very first minutes.
None were more keep to throw the body around and keep the puck out of the defensive zone than Brady Skjei who had two excellent hits. Even the offense was throwing the body around with new-comer Jesper fast leading the way with five solid hits.
When the Red Wings decided to take exception to that and took a cheap shot at Jordan Staal at the boards, the Hurricanes didn’t back down and we got a heavyweight bout that featured Dougie Hamilton who absolutely rag-dolled Sam Gagner in defense of his captain.
https://twitter.com/Canes/status/1349903136207609856
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You always have to love seeing Hamilton defend his teammates like this. Considering it is two days shy of a full year since he broke his foot, perhaps it may be best to leave that sort of fisticuffs to the younger breed like Brock McGinn (who had another excellent pair of penalty kills by the way) or even Svechnikov.
Still, the fact that this team will fight and do so for each other from day one shows the kind of gel that you can only get when a roster like this barely shifts in the offseason. Expect more of this physicality over the next 55+ games as we dig in and get more and more hockey.
I know there are more players who did excellent things during this game that I didn’t get to give the proper credit they deserve, but let’s take this one game at a time. We have a long shortened season ahead of us.
The next game will be at 7 PM ET on Saturday, so rewind your alarms back 30 minutes from what you had set them to tonight.
Question For CC Readers: How do you feel today after yesterday’s win?
Next. Storylines Between the Canes and Red Wings. dark