3 keys to a Thanksgiving win in Philadelphia for the Hurricanes
By Conor Power
Carolina’s forwards need to put the puck in the net
Carolina has not gotten a goal from a forward since the 2nd period in the 5-4 win over the Los Angeles Kings. They’ve gotten two goals from defenseman since then, but that is not going to be enough to take two points from Philadelphia. Some for the Carolina Hurricanes will need to step up and put the puck in the net and see the Canes over the line.
Carolina seems to have struggled to put the puck in lately. On the entire West Coast portion of this road trip, the Carolina Hurricanes only scored 13 goals. That may seem like a lot, but 9 of those came in 2 games against the Los Angeles Kings and Vegas Golden Knights. 4 goals in the other 3 games is a problem. That’s going to make it difficult to win games, and the team relied heavily on their goalie in that 2-1 win in Anaheim.
In the last game, we saw the lines get put through the blender. We saw players that have usually been on the fourth line sprinkled throughout the lineup. We saw key top six players playing on the 4th line. We saw what I think was an attempt to balance the lineup, and it backfired horribly as the Canes were never able to take a lead and make their balanced offense work out for them.
If the Canes want to win in this game, then they cannot afford to start messing around with their line combinations and not putting the puck in the net. They will be punished by this Philadelphia Flyers team. It’s a major issue if the Canes cannot score tonight, and if they want to get back into winning ways, their best forwards are going to need to drag the team out of this scoring slump.