Carolina Hurricanes: Takeaways from Tough Loss in Tampa

Ned Has Settled In

Alex Nedeljkovic is the sole reason the Carolina Hurricanes didn’t get obliterated on Wednesday. Without his performance, the score might have been upwards of 6-0.

The first goal was given up after a centering pass from Victor Hedman found its way to Ross Colton on the doorstep, where he was covered 3-to-1 by Canes sweaters, and he scores (tell me if you’ve heard this before) his first NHL goal.

If you had blinked at the wrong time, you might have missed the second goal on Tampa’s stout power play. It was a picture-perfect zone entry and it was as simple as tic-tac-goal for Blake Coleman to make it 2-0.

Throughout the remainder of the game, Ned stood on his head. He looked calm and collected, his intuition to play the puck was better than in games past, and his patience to stay on his feet until the last possible moment was promising to see. In total, he stopped 25 of 27 shots, and made three or four spectacular saves to keep the Hurricanes within reach.

After a spirited comeback effort from Carolina, Barclay Goodrow would go on to ice the game with an empty-netter.

Alex Nedeljkovic was the sole reason that the Hurricanes had even a sliver of life going down the stretch in this game, but it’s too bad his teammates in front of him couldn’t give him a chance at a win. Due to Ned’s recent performance in his last two starts, I think he appears to be settling in nicely between the pipes at the NHL level. I was certainly proven wrong after his first three starts.

Even without the win, Ned’s numbers on the season slightly improved to .914 SV% and 2.38 GAA.

Sending Prayers

The Carolina Hurricanes aren’t going to win many games if they only play one period. That was the story from the offensive side of the puck on Wednesday.

The start was okay for the first few minutes, there was noticeable pressure from the Canes, but that quickly went downhill after Tampa Bay’s opening goal.

Half of Carolina’s shots throughout this game were nothing more than prayers from the blue line. You can only rely so much on a net front presence before you realize that the other team is going to snuff that out before the shot even happens. Against a goalie like Andrei Vasilevskiy, you have to make him work for his saves, or he is going to shut the door.

The Canes finally decided to show up and had their best possession of the game at around 16 minutes into the 2nd period.

Jaccob Slavin led the team in shots-on-goal with 5, and emerged as the quarterback of the Canes’ offense in the 3rd period.

However, it was too little, too late for the Hurricanes against a Tampa Bay side that simply parked the bus and played stout defense for the remainder of the contest.

Teravainen’s Absence

While the Carolina Hurricanes and their fans are eager for the return of starting goaltender Petr Mrazek, I think the most pressing name on the injury report right now is Teuvo Teravainen.

Diagnosed with a concussion on February 23rd, Teravainen will be out of the lineup for the near future, a timetable hasn’t been determined for his return.

Let’s be blunt, Turbo has had a rough start to the 2020-21 campaign. He started with a promising two assist night in the first game of the season, but couldn’t get back on the scoresheet after that. He was placed on the COVID protocol list for the tail-end of January, where he missed three games.

Teravainen couldn’t find the scoresheet again until February 13th, when he scored his first goal of the season against Dallas. This goal helped him get back to his game and he seemingly had found his old form that Canes fans are used to seeing.

Now he’s out once again for an undisclosed amount of time.

The last three games against Tampa, Teuvo’s presence has been sorely missed. The top line of Sebastian Aho, Andrei Svechnikov, and Brock McGinn has been held to 5 combined points, one of which was an empty-netter.

In the last three games with Teravainen in the lineup, the top line combined for 14.

We miss you, Turbo. Get well soon.