Carolina Hurricanes: Three keys to beating the Bolts
After sustaining their first loss of the season, the Carolina Hurricanes travel to Amalie Arena in Tampa Bay where they will take on the back-to-back defending Stanley Cup Champion Tampa Bay Lightning. But this is not the same vaunted Bolts team that beat the Canes in May, this roster has undergone some major changes.
With Tampa Bay’s entire 3rd line having moved on (one in the expansion draft, the other two in free agency) and their star Russian winger back on IR (insert cap circumvention joke here), Carolina cannot afford to leave the Bay area without a win. This is a game the Canes need to perform well in so they can at least take some positives from this road trip to Florida.
This will be the first time these two teams have met since game 5 where the Lightning shut the Canes out to eliminate them from the Stanley Cup playoffs. A chance at redemption for the Canes if you will. A chance to prove that they have overcome their previous demons against the Tampa Bay Lightning. We know that the Canes edged the Bolts to the division title last year so a win here would do a lot to prove that this team is different mentally.
Tampa has not been the conqueror of worlds they once were. A lowly 6-3-2 record is what the Lightning sit at right now, and they are currently 3rd in the division with a total of 14 points. Good enough to make the playoffs, not good enough for home ice. This is a chance for the Carolina Hurricanes to really show the world that they are good enough to become champions.
Overcoming the injury bug
Carolina has lost a big player, depth piece, and backup netminder to injuries already. But without Brett Pesce, Nino Niederreiter, and Antti Raanta, the Carolina Hurricanes are going to need to find a way to overcome the defending Stanley Cup champions. Sounds pretty impossible to me, but a Zamboni driver beat a 60 million dollar offense so anything is possible I guess.
How can the Hurricanes overcome such a strong team with such a weakened lineup? Next man-up mentality. We’ve seen it in the forward core where a rookie came in and pushed the team to come back against the Chicago Blackhawks, and we’re going to see the team go through a lot of strong opponents in the next few weeks. It’s vital that the team can figure out a way to win.
With that said, it’s the most important thing that these 20 guys get out of this game healthy or things start to get complicated with the cap and so on. Avoid injury at all costs, and whatever happens, get the two points. Leaving the state of Florida empty-handed would be absolutely catastrophic for the Carolina Hurricanes season so far.
This might seem like an overreaction but these are the two biggest games of the season so far. Carolina laid a goose egg in the first one and needs a result from tonight’s game for the standings to look better than they were. They were beaten by Florida and they cannot afford for this game to have the same result.
SAT Line power through
For the first time since game 5 of the postseason, the Carolina Hurricanes will unite their three best forwards on the same line. We will see the reunification of the SAT line and they will need to come through big if the Canes have aspirations of collecting a win from tonight’s game. They are going to be the most important part of the forward core.
If the Carolina Hurricanes do not get their big three to step up, then this is going to become a very difficult task. These top three include their best scorer, the best playmaker, and best player, and they’re all separate. That’s a very good thing to have. Not being over-reliant on one player makes this team so much more difficult to stop, but that doesn’t mean this trio is good enough to beat anyone.
Especially in a game against the defending Stanley Cup Champions, Carolina’s top line will need to be at its very best to get two points from the Bay Area. This is a measuring stick as to what the Carolina Hurricanes need to be if they continue to want to compete for the Stanley Cup. They will need to be at their shining best.
With one player capable of performing the lacrosse move, to a player who is capable of pure domination on the rink, to one of the best playmakers in the NHL, this line is deadly in every sense of the word. All three members are going to need to be at their best if the Canes want to win tonight.
Penalty kill wakes up
Carolina lost the last game on the back of a lot of penalties and a lot of bad penalty killing. These two things will see you lose almost any game in the National Hockey League. I’ve talked a lot before about the Canes needing to start on time, but the Canes penalty kill was not good enough in the last game for the team to continuously take stupid penalties.
Carolina will need to ward off a powerplay that absolutely ate them alive in the postseason, and this is without one of their best penalty killers. Obviously, the best treatment is usually prevention. Stay out of the box as much as possible, but that won’t always be possible. Keep the puck to the outside, deny the zone entry as much as possible and be aggressive.
Carolina’s penalty kill was 97% before the game against the Florida Panthers. It’s shown on multiple occasions that they know how to kill penalties. It’s going to be vital to get over the hump when penalized and get through without conceding as much as possible. The Talent is there and we know they can do it, but this is a difficult task.
That’s it, for now, folks, we’ll be back after the game with three takeaways but until then, thank you for reading and let’s go Canes!