The Carolina Hurricanes are down 1-0 in their first round series against the Boston Bruins, after losing 4-3 in double overtime today.
In all honesty, the Hurricanes weren’t the better team and the third period was really the only one where they outplayed the Bruins.
We got some surprises, as both Sami Vatanen and Justin Williams were ruled as unfit to play in Game 1, so Ryan Dzingel and Haydn Fleury got spots in the lineup. I didn’t love the Hurricanes messing around with lines and in my opinion, they’ve should’ve just swapped Dzingel in for Williams. The fourth line will be strong no matter who’s on it and I think Nino Niederreiter would’ve been more useful in the top-nine. I also didn’t think Ryan Dzingel looked good on the second line.
The Foegele-Staal-McGinn line also wasn’t strong enough and really, they got crushed at even strength. The line was scored on twice and were outshot by a brutal 13-4 margin (according to NaturalStatTrick.com).
Pretty much the entire defense group also needs to be better. The Bruins were getting way too many good chances and were able to capitalize. Jaccob Slavin was allowing some passes through that he’d normally break up, Brady Skjei had some bad turnovers and both Joel Edmundson and Jake Gardiner were caught out of position more than once.
As for Petr Mrazek, he performed quite well for the most part. I’d say you really can’t fault him for three of the four goals and he also made some good saves on point-blank chances. His rebound control in overtime was also excellent. However, that second goal just can’t happen. Even if the puck was poked out, he needs to make sure it's covered and can’t allow it loose. Goals like that can’t go in during the playoffs.
It was a fairly disappointing effort from the Hurricanes and they didn’t deserve to win Game 1. If Justin Williams isn’t back for tomorrow’s game, hopefully we still see some players moved around the lineup.
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Here’s today’s poll question (results and discussion will be posted in a future article):
If Justin Williams isn't back for Game 2, should the Hurricanes make changes to their forward lineup?
Carolina Hurricanes Blogger • 
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