Carolina Hurricanes: Keys to beating Philadelphia

With a win over the Tampa Bay Lightning in their last game, Carolina returns home to PNC Arena to take on the Philadelphia Flyers with a chance to move to the top of the NHL standings. After seeing both the Edmonton Oilers and Florida Panthers struggled recently, the Canes need a win tonight to move into first place in the league with multiple games in hand on their rivals.

This doesn’t mean that being the best team in the league should be the end-all and be-all. It very seldomly matters. Win enough games to get into the playoffs, and from there anything is possible. In this respect, Carolina is currently 8 points clear of the first team outside the playoff places, even if it is early in the season.

Tonight, Carolina goes toe to toe with a division rival and a potential playoff opponent as they welcome the Flyers down from Philadelphia. With the Flyers currently sitting one point outside the 2nd wild card place, they will be looking to get into the playoff places tonight as they sit at 6-3-2 on the season and 6th in the division.

With all eight Metropolitan teams currently sitting above NHL .500, a win tonight for the Carolina Hurricanes would go a long way in assuring their presence when the Stanley Cup Playoffs begin in a few months. Beating divisional foes is something Carolina has struggled with in the past, especially their Metro foes, so expelling those demons in a win tonight would be therapeutic for all of us.

Score early and often

Carolina will go up against a netminder tonight who has struggled in the past because he gets inside his own head and stews on his mistakes. Scoring a goal or two on him early could start this process and ease a lot of the tension out of this game. Carolina’s offense might not have all the tools it did to start the season, but it’s still got enough to win this game if they can make a netminder doubt himself.

Carolina’s system of wave after wave of attacking pressure and forechecking is going to have to make a big appearance in this game. Carolina knows that this is a game that losing is not an option. Losing to a divisional opponent in this bloodbath that the NHL so kindly threw the reigning Central Division champions back into and named the Metropolitan division.

Now, losing this game is far from a disaster. Carolina knows that at this point, they’ve got a lot of breathing room between them and missing the playoffs. They’ve got a lot of space between them and the fringe playoff-caliber teams. With that in mind, the team needs to not take this Flyers team for granted and not take a breath. Start early and score early, force Philly back and push them.

If you force the Flyers to attempt to overcome this Carolina Hurricanes machine, then you’re going to have success. The only time the Canes have lost this season is when they were 4-0 down at the end of the first period. If they lead, then this game will quickly be killed off. Carolina always seems to get better as the game goes on, so start early and kill it quick.

Continue dominating when the game is on the line

Carolina has outscored their opponents 15-2 in the 3rd period of games so far this season. If a game is tight, they will kill it off or come back in the third, and this is exactly what the team will need. This has all the ingredients of a game that’s going to be close, so this kind of an advantage in the toughest part of a game could very much decide which way the two points go tonight.

With two very evenly matched forward cores, both full of power forwards and stars, and both hampered by injuries, it’s going to be a tight battle. It’s going to be one shot, one move, one pass that splits this game open and separates the two teams if the Flyers netminders can hold up, so keeping this game close going into the Canes’ best period will be an advantage.

For the Flyers, they would need to establish a multigoal lead going into the third to justify having any large amount of confidence in counting out the Carolina Hurricanes. When all is said and done, we will be able to see if this is right or wrong, but if this is a close game in the 3rd, expect Carolina to look the better of the two teams.

Both teams are also closely matched on the blue line, and both have an injury taking their best Right-handed defenseman out of this one. Expect left-wingers to find a lot of success in this game, and expect the goaltenders to have a lot of shots to stop looking to their right. It’s not going to be an easy game for either team, and it’s going to be close all the way through.