In terms of emotions following hockey games, it is often much less about the result and more about how you got there. That is very much true for the Canes overtime loss to Chicago on Tuesday night in Raleigh.
The 1st period was easily 1 of the most disappointing of the season:
--The Canes came out with no jump and looked incredibly sluggish despite having the defending Stanley Cup champions on their home ice.
--The complete inability to move the puck from their own end and/or from 1 stick to another made other recent games where this was a problem look like hockey art work.
--Eric Staal took an unnecessary frustration penalty in the offensive zone that helped quickly turn an early 1-goal deficit into 2. (It technically was not a power play goal but came immediately after the penalty expired and before the Canes could clear the puck.)
--Cam Ward had no answer and looked like he had his feet frozen into the ice and appeared unable to react on either goal in addition to leaving rebounds laying here there and everywhere.
--When you net it out, it did not look like the Canes even belonged on the ice with Chicago after the 1st period.
Then the Canes were clearly the better team in the 2nd period, managed to tilt the ice the other way and got the better of the chances. But Crawford was solid and the Blackhawks were pretty good at keeping offensive zone time from leading too many Grade A chances. The Canes emerged from the 2nd period at least with dignity and signs of having heart, but with nothing on the score board, I figured the chance of anything but a more victory were pretty slim.
But the Canes just kept to it, were again the better team in the 3rd period and scratched and clawed their way to a tie at the end of regulation and a chance to claim the extra point. Even after letting a huge opportunity pass when failing to score on a power play in overtime, the Canes managed a couple real good chances in the last 30 seconds of overtime at even strength. And of course we all know how shootouts end for the Carolina Hurricanes. Ugh!
But as noted above, because of the "how" for this game, the team will leave it in a better place than it started it in terms of confidence, and a point in the standings against Chicago is not bad either. And it finishes up the gauntlet of a schedule to start the season with 7 points in 7 games. It is slightly below a playoff pace, but it gets the team out of the icky feelings of the end of 2012-13 and into a new season with hope which is more important than the exact details of the standings at this early juncture.
A few player notes:
--Cam Ward. Off the top of my head, I can think of few games of his that were more bizarre than this one. I think the fairest summary is that he faced a very good team, saw a pretty high volume of shots and hung in there to give his team a chance to win. To the positive, he got better as the game went on and made some really good saves in the 2nd half of the game when his team needed them to have a chance. To the negative, he had no answer early when his team needed him to hold the fort in the 1st period. He was incredibly timid, sat back in the net and looked frozen into the ice on the breakaway goal and also looked slow to react on the 2nd goal. To the positive, he battled with purpose down the stretch and looked decisive. But then I doubt I could find a single game in his entire career where his rating is positive but his rebound control was so off. Even after he started playing well, he continued to leave rebounds laying here, there and everywhere. At the end of the day, I give Ward credit for finding a way to help his team get 2 points on a night when it was not easy, and I was impressed by his mental strength managing a strong outing on a night where I think he was actually fighting the puck the entire night.
--Alexander Semin. Good for him netting a huge goal. Ruutu did seem to help a bit, but that line is still not firing on all cylinders. But aside from the EStaal frustration penalty, they were better in the other 2 zones, avoided the temptation to cheat a bunch to try to create offense and in the end got rewarded with a goal. Here is hoping that 1 of these goals soon is the 1 that lights the fire for this line.
--Ryan Murphy. He had a couple rookie mistakes getting undressed 1-on-1 off the rush as has happened a couple times and also making things harder than they needed to be carrying the puck in front of his net then losing it behind it very late in the 2nd period when a chip up the boards probably would have ended the period. But a couple plays aside, he looked really good Tuesday. You can see him getting increasingly comfortable carrying the puck even against teams that are pretty sound defensively. What is most striking to me about him in this regard is how few bad turnovers he has made through 7 games. He has occasionally missed a pass or had to eat a puck, but in making a huge adjustment to the NHL speed and pressure on the forecheck with teams undoubtedly looking to test him, he has been incredibly good with the puck on his stick. It will be interesting to see if Muller moves him up to play with Hainsey. He has good chemistry with Harrison and the 2 seem to fit well together. And it would press him into more difficult defensive minutes especially on the road. But the upside is that he is playing pretty confident hockey right now, and with 2 decent skating defenseman playing together just maybe they can be 1 of those pairings where they play good defense by actually playing less defense (because they get the puck to the offensive zone). And just maybe the skating and moving the puck more quickly will help manufacture some offense via transition.
--Jay Harrison. I am pretty sure he is Nic Wallin. Seriously. Left shot. Somewhat similar size and build. Relatively unspectacular style of play. But just plain solid in the right role as a 3rd pairing defenseman. He just continues to eat up minutes mostly without incident. His best play today was the 1 where he got turned around, fell and swiped the puck away in desperation, but otherwise he mostly just went on the ice for 40-45 seconds and came off again without much problem.
--Solid night in the circle. All 3 of the Canes top centers were better than 50% in the faceoff circle Tuesday night. Riley Nash has had a couple solid games recently. If can turn the corner, it helps significantly in terms of spreading minutes on the road if Muller does not need to be zone-limited in his stoppage line changes.
--Jeff Skinner. He did not get on the scoreboard or necessarily have a dominant game offensively but was still a plus player (his line was on for Hainsey's goal) which is a continuing trend of huge significance.
I think what encourages me most about the 2013-14 Carolina Hurricanes so far is that the team is developing an ability to win or at least collect points when things are not firing on all cylinders. If you can do that for most of the season, avoid any extended slumps and then find only a couple of 10-14 day hot stretches, you are on your way to the playoffs.
Next up is the annual State Fair road trip that does not really exist this year. The Canes do play 4 in a row on the road, but it is split as 2 quick road games this week followed by a few days of practice at home followed by another 2 quick road games.
Twitter=@CarolinaMatt63
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