Carolina Hurricanes

12% of Canes Season Goals in Three Games-More Coming Tonight?
March 14, 2017, 2:59 PM ET [1 Comments]
Ben Case
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Last night, the Canes won the first match-up in a “home and home” series against the Islanders. It was another offensive showdown and the Canes were able to find the net eight times. While all three goalies let in some questionable goals, the real storyline was that the Canes got contributions from everywhere—five goals from D and production from almost all four lines.

The Canes are now 3-0-0 against the Islanders for the season. They've also become the Maple Leafs and their fans favorite team in the NHL right now. It appears the Islanders are the only Metro division team that the Canes give serious problems. They have amassed 20 goals in three games against them—in fact, I tweeted last night that the Islanders goalie problem against the Canes is so bad, it might be time they call back Halak.




It appears that I’m not the only one who thought that the Canes were the straw that broke the camel’s back either. Noel Fogelman talked more about the core issue going on today in his pre-game post


The irony about Halak is that his career splits against all NHL teams are the best against his current team posting a 7-1-1 record with a .950 SV% and a 1.53 GAA according to Hockey Reference. You have to imagine GM Snow wondering why he can’t post those numbers against anyone other than the Islanders.

Don’t get me wrong, I love seeing the Canes scoring like this. I anticipate it will be another wide-open offensive battle tonight, however, maybe the Islanders should give him a try tonight. The Canes have scored 170 goals this year and in the three games against the Islanders, they’ve found almost 12% of their season goals.

Looking at last night, I was exceptionally happy with Nordstrom. I’d talked about his past 34 games going into the night and noted that while he wasn’t offensively producing, he was still valuable for his physicality and PK. He was able to break his 34 game goal-less streak in a clutch goal that gave the Canes a 2-1 lead in the first period. He also contributed three hits and led the forwards in physicality.

While the bottom six provided some offense, they were still a defensive liability last night. Many of the Islanders goals came with the bottom two lines on the ice—this will be a concern moving forward against better competition than the Islanders. Stempniak, Ryan, Brown, Wallmark and Nordstrom were all minus 1. They can't be that much of a liability in games that are low-scoring or it will cost games.

The PK looked a little better last night too. I didn’t think they gave up as many quality chances as they have recently. They killed off both of the penalties—also, as a team they were much more disciplined.

I really thought the Canes established a good fore-check in the offensive zone and limited the Islanders ability to transition in neutral ice well. The D continue to do a strong job of stepping up on passes in the neutral zone and limited the opponents opportunities for rushes. The puck pressure from both forwards and the D forced 14 Islanders giveaways.

I also have to mention that the D did an excellent job of getting involved in the offense. Faulk and Slavin were finding great opportunities to jump into the scheme and contributed for five goals together. Slavin got is first NHL hat-trick—really great to see him rewarded offensively as he is such a defensive anchor for the Canes.

I imagine that the Canes will start Lack tonight. Ward has let in a few soft goals the past few games, despite a strong showing against the Rangers recently. I imagine Lack won’t go more than three consecutive games without a start the rest of the season. It would be great if both goalies to put up strong number for the remaining games.

As the Canes sit nine points out of the playoffs, I imagine they’re only kicking themselves for losing twice to the Aves and once to the Coyotes. While beating the snot out of the Islanders is fun, losing such winnable games is the storyline for why the Canes are where they are.
Puck drop is at 7:00 and on FSCR and MSG+2—Go Canes!