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Canes Game #31: At Canucks --- You can't always get what you want... |
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...but if you try sometimes, you just might find...you get what you need.
If you look at yesterday's Canes/Canucks game in the context of the week, it was mostly a bad ending to a horrible week. The Canes mustered 1 lonely point out of 6 possible, mostly played horribly and and had a couple significant injury setbacks along the way.
But if you look at only the results from yesterday's game, ignore the quality of play and ignore the week around it, I think the Canes got what they needed at least for this 1 game. They got a point on the road against a decent team and against a goalie that has given them nightmares at times in the past. In the course of a long 82-game season where things are not always going to go your way, this is what you need to do - get a point per game on the road and in bad times and do better at home and in good times.
A few notes on the game:
1) Mostly poor. There was a lot not to like about this game from a Carolina viewpoint. The recent bright spot penalty kill was lost minus BrindAmour to the tune of 4 goals against. Though the powerplay did score, I am not sure it looked much better. The other team's goaltender was better again. We took way too many penalties Etc.
2) About 5 too many unnecessary penalties. Walker took 2 delay of game penalties, neither of which were pressure-induced. Cole sat in the box for his obligatory unnecessary hooking penalty. There were a couple others too. Vancouver has struggled mightily on offense of late. But when you give a team countless chances to put their 5 best on the ice against your 4, you give even the most struggling a chance or 2 or 9!
3) I guess you have to take the good with the bad. You have to love the thing deep down inside Erik Cole that just seems to abhor losing. His effort level increases with frustration and adversity and in many ways it carries his game to a higher level. I love that more than anything else about the guy - more than his speed, more than his hitting, more than last year's newfound offense that turned him into the team's best player for stretches and has him there again right now. But there is the dark side and the misguided channeling of this energy. When the effort is not rewarded and especially when the refs let things go against him, it continues to be inevitable that he will take an unncessary penalty or 2 that frustrates the heck out of me. He would obviously be better if this could be cured, but if not, I will take the heart/passion/fire over none any day.
4) Ward. He had a tough night tonight. In the middle of making some quality saves, he gave rebounds all night. And way too many were the kind that just sat 8 feet in front of him begging to be put behind him. The 1st 3 Canucks goals came on juicy rebounds. My rough count was about a dozen bad rebounds. You have to give Vancouver credit for creating traffic all night and for having guys hanging around ready to bang stuff in, but Ward needed to be better. As we have said a bunch of times this season, Ward was not bad, but you know what - yesterday marks 3 for 3 on the trip that the other team's goalie was better.
So is there anything worth keeping? 2 significant things actually.
1) The point. As I said above, a point a game on the road is fine. And in 4 months when they do playoff seedings (hopefully to include the Canes), no one will check whether last night's was a worthy point or not.
2) How about the fight? When you are losing 3-0 late in the 3rd period, minus your captain, struggling to score and facing a good goalie who has given you fits in the past, you are supposed to quit. For all of the negatives from this week, you have to give the team a ton of credit for fighting until the very end and demonstrating an impressive never say die attitude in a very dark hour. That says something about this team.
As a sidenote, I think last night might have been a preview of things to come in terms of line combinations.
The Whitney/____/Walker pairing is likely to become a 3rd line when Stillman and BrindAmour return (probably with Belanger between them). I also think that Ladd/____/Williams could stick with BrindAmour between them. About a week ago, Ladd was healthy-scratched and given the talking to by Coach Laviolette. His play has been good albeit with 4th line minutes since then. He just might play his way into that LW spot next to BrindAmour. CAdams at LW with Staal/Cole is a placeholder for Stillman. The desperate times on the powerplay also saw Whitney at the point for the first time (that I can remember) all season. He thrived in this role last season when Stillman was manning the halfboards spot that he is playing now.
A few comments on Luongo:
-Isn't it great that we only have to see him once a year or less these days?
-No matter how many times I watch him, I am constantly amazed at how little net he gives to shoot at. And I think he intentionally shows just a little net on the glove side only because he knows that he catches all those shots.
-And oh the flare. He also has a flare for the dramatic which makes him fun to watch. He seems to have a trigger whereby anytime a puck ends up in his glove (such that he does not need to face a next shot) his body just automatically contorts and flops to the ice. Don't get me wrong, he does make great saves, but he also likes to punctuate some of these saves just to make sure the sports news highlight guy does not miss him.
-Rebound control. He is arguably the best in the league at stopping first shots, but I think the chink in his armor continues to be rebound control. On a good night, it just inflates the shot total, but on a rough night it asks a lot of the defense and gives the offense extra chances.
Time to try to grind out another point or 2 and get back home.
Go Canes!
Carolina Hurricanes Blogger • 
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