Carolina Hurricanes: Three keys to big game in Sunrise
By Conor Power
The head coach leads the way
What is the biggest advantage Carolina has going into this game? Some will point at the crease, and some will point to the Canes forward depth. I would argue both are wrong. Carolina’s biggest advantage tonight is their Jack Adams winning head coach Rod Brind’amour. He’s going up against an interim head coach in Florida and it’s a big game for the reigning Jack Adams winner.
This is the game that Rod can show everyone that said last year that he deserved his award. Florida’s head coach has obviously been changed in recent times due to his negligence when he was a member of the Chicago Blackhawks. I talked about that in the preview to the first Chicago game and won’t talk about it now, but it has left them with an inexperienced head coach.
Rod needs to use his tenure and experience as an NHL head coach to best the novice in this scenario. I do not say this to degrade the Panthers’ bench boss. This is just something that will need to happen if the Carolina Hurricanes have winning aspirations for this game. If Brind’amour is outcoached by his counterpart, the team will have a very difficult time fighting past this opponent.
It’s a difficult task. Outcoaching anyone who was ever behind the bench of an NHL team is a very difficult task, but if Rod fails in this, Carolina can kiss their perfect record goodbye. This Panthers team is too good to hope that the star talent bails the Hurricanes out, and with the way that the team has performed in the last 2 games, they’re not exactly on a trajectory to do it anyway.