Carolina Hurricanes End the Dallas Streak, Look to Repeat

Keep up the Toughness

Just like I mentioned in my Keys to the game yesterday, the Dallas Stars, after giving up a few goals early in this game, began to get frustrated and throw the body around looking to make a statement. They managed to injure a few Carolina Hurricanes too. But this team stood strong and remained tough.

More importantly, they remained disciplined. Even though the officials looked like they were ready to call a penalty on any Cane who looked at them funny, they only racked up 12 PIMs in a game that could have gotten extremely chippy, especially when you factor in five extremely young players on the ice.

Tonight there needs to be more of that. More discipline. More asserted toughness. Play as a team for the team. We saw that last night. No reason there won’t be more of that this evening. The question of course will be if Max McCormick would return.

Don’t be surprised to see Drew Shore, who was sent to the taxi squad on Thursday make his season debut. It would be his first NHL game since 16-17 season where he played 14 games for the Vancouver Canucks.

But none of that matters. This is Rod Brind’amour hockey. This is his team and the way he coaches his team, they develop more than a connection with each other. They can all sense each other through the force. An attack on one Carolina Hurricane is an attack on all. Everyone will defend each other. They will also score for each other.

You will not find anyone standing around on the ice and avoiding the puck in a Carolina sweater, I will assure you that.

That includes toughness on both ends of the ice. You don’t suffocate a team down to only 11 shots on goal in a full sixty minutes without being tough defensively. How many shots never make it to the net because of a body being in the way? How many shots never happen because space just wasn’t there for it, and a Carolina Hurricane was in the way?

Simply put it take a complete team toughness to dominate and demolish an undefeated team like they did last night. Everyone from the superstars to the first-timers showed tenacity as we have never seen before, well since the David Ayres game.

That brings me to the final key/takeaway before tonight’s game.