Canes Come Alive In San Jose: Hurricanes 5, Sharks 2

Where in Nevada do you live? I’m located in America’s toilet (Las Vegas) I so wish I could see my Canes play live and in person. Good to know I’m not the only Caniac in Nevada.

Went to bed after that. Watched the highlights this morning. All in all, good speed through the neutral zone and we didn’t get hung up on the boards, which was key. I didn’t get the sense San Jose was trying to muscle us, which freed us up a bit to fly around the ice. When our guys build up speed they can be deadly. Babchuck continues to grow and develop, he is coming along nicely. Saw Pits out of position on one of the first two Sharks goals, but he was hustling and actually shot the puck! And good God, Cole finished for once! The perfect storm. Congrats to Coach Mo for his line tweaking, Rosie was clicking with Staal on this night, and moving Cole out of the top six was a gutsy move. Good for Mo, keep it up.

The only really stinky part I saw last night was Corvo. Again, he looks lost, out of position, lacking confidence. I wonder how long we will be able to absorb this on the defensive end before he becomes too big a liability?

Nice, solid win. Does anyone know if LA has defense that likes to bring the wood or any goons to try and wipe our guys along the boards? If we get a lot of open ice through the neutral zone again, we’ll be in good shape.

That’s your Jeff Skinner Funny Face of the Game.

   I stayed up to watch the game and was really glad I did. I had watched on dvr the Ottawa game while waiting for the Sharks game. Last night demonstrated to me the way the Hurricanes need to play to win. The Sharks are a formidable team and have an abundance of veteran talent on the team, as well as a physical approach to the game. From the start, the Hurricanes played with intensity and speed. As far as I am concerned, the video from last night is classic Hurricanes hockey at its best: Staal comes out on fire; Ruutu pounds any thing that moves; Cam Ward makes impossible saves look easy (now if he can master the art of consistency on the less difficult saves); Rosey chirps, hustles, disrupts, and makes Staal smile/laugh/relax; Skinner is a puck magnet who makes plays out of thin air; the Dmen make tape to tape passes; and in general the team swarms the puck.

  One of the highlights for me, in addition to Staal, Skinner, LaRose, and Ruutu, was Pitkanen’s goal. The Sharks tried to punk Skinner and even though the team came to his aid, nobody cleaned house. Pitkanen pounded a shot into the net as if emphasis his disgust with the Shark’s chump play.

   I watched the Ottawa game on dvr while waiting for the Sharks game to begin; and what struck me was how close the Hurricanes were to winning that game. With about 7 minutes left, the score was 2 to 2; and even though the game was ragged, the Hurricanes were hanging in there. Jokinen’s untimely high sticking penalty really crushed the team; and it was just a bad break. He was in position, doing what he was supposed to do, and was trying to lift a stick when the penalty occurred. But for that one bad break, the Hurricanes easily would be 4 and 1.

   I also didn’t realize when watching live how much better Babchuk is skating this year than in 2008-2009. He has improved in all areas; and had a much stronger game than I realized. Harrison last night had a solid performance, and I am looking forward to watching this game again to see if my impression that Harrison played well is reinforced by reviewing the game. I did think Harrison had a bit of a slow start again against the Sharks; but he had several really excellent defensive plays at the end of the game when the game was not in hand.

   I have been and continue to be somewhat skeptical that LaRose belongs on the first line; but there is no denying the chemistry between LaRose and Staal. It may look like a nightmare on paper (as I tend to think it does), but on the ice, LaRose and Staal bring out the best in each other’s game when the magic is working. Skinner also continues to be very, very impressive. The Sharks tried to disrupt the team by picking on Skinner, which was a punk move by the Sharks, I thought. I think they totally misunderstand Skinner’s personality. I believe the more teams try to hassle Skinner, the better he plays. Game after game, Skinner is one of the players leading the team on the ice; and has the ability to make something happen literally where there is no play.

   I also like Dalpe’s game, even though he struggled again with faceoffs. I am hoping the Hurricanes brain trust will leave the lineup as is, with the possible exception of letting Carson replace Harrison. I think the team is more balanced with Dalpe at center than with Samsonov in the lineup.

   Defensively, the Hurricanes have moments of running around, but the overall result is working. Other than the Canucks game, the Hurricanes have a bend but don’t break defense. I think Corvo is playing quite well at times, but also has some moments where he is struggling a little. Gleason seems to have some lower body injury, at least to me it seems that way, because he is falling down more than I’ve seen him in past seasons. It’s a great sign for the defense that the team is 3 and 2 without having their first home game at the RBC with the defense still working on gelling. Some of the issue on defense comes from the high forward not opening up and getting hypnotized by the puck. It is somewhat clearer on watching video where you can pause the video to see where people are located. Another issue is that sometimes the forwards try to “help out” a teammate who really doesn’t need help and they leave their man wide open. I imagine they are still trying to develop faith and trust in each other at this point in the season.

   I think only the Caniacs would have said there was a chance the Hurricanes would be 3 and 2 at this point in the season and that on a consistent basis Skinner would be the best forward on the ice.

   Finally, I think this season’s Hurricanes team has more spine and resiliency than last year’s team, for whatever reason. When things start to go wrong, they pull together and find a way to win. Last season for the first 25 or 30 games, they were nervous Nellie’s and were often overcome with angst at the first signs of adversity. This year they power through the rough spots thus far in the season.

That was like watching a different team, thought everyone played really well, good road win. Everyone on the back end was impressive, McBain played much better. Harrison continues to impress, he made a number of smart plays with the puck that got the Canes out of trouble. On to LA, can’t get too high or too low.

They played a great game. Did a lot better than I expected. I wish they’d play like that every game this season. :(

The Good: Cam Ward is playing his A game. If he can hold up, he is going to steal us a bunch of games this year.Staal was a major presence and was really finding that extra gear Tripp likes to talk about. We started producing from the blueline again. Nice to see Pits shooting the puck, and Babs had a decent game to. The team did what they were built to do, generate sustained pressure in the Offensive zone ( we didn’t do it consistently, but when we did, we scored). Even if it means that we give up more chances going back the other way.

The Bad: Juice looks really tentative. I am not sure why, maybe injury, maybe the emotional comedown after the Finland games. Faceoffs were AAAAAAAWFUL again for us, which is to be expected. We also gambled against a very good power play that we were lucky enough to see on an off night. Normally the sharks would have put us away with all the penalty trouble we got ourselves into.

Overall I am happy for the two points, but I am not real high after this win ( though a good effort was shown). I really felt like we saw a super flat San Jose club that may have even been mailing one in on what they saw as a substandard opponent. I will just be happy for the win, and cautiously optomistic that they are able to take some of the positives from today’s game and start to make those the cornerstones of our game ( Blueliners in the rush, aggressive forecheck, sustained offensive zone pressure)

Very nice game last night by the Canes! That IMO was their best game so far this season. Here are some of my thoughts on individual players.

Cam – He looked great! What else can you say about him? SJ should have gotten more than 2 goals last night, but Ward said “No!”

Staal – That takeaway that resulted in the LaRose goal was great. I also think he is playing pretty well defensively. But that 1st SJ goal was all on him. He’s got to be more aware and stay in position. Overall I think he played a decent game, but I think he can & should play better. P.S. way to go in the faceoff circle, especially against a very good FO team like San Jose!

Chad – Where have you been so far this season? Chad played his game and his best game of the season. He was flying all over the ice and taking advantage of any mistake that San Jose made.

Harrison – He has quitely been our best defenseman so far (that’s still scary), but he played well. He was physical, didn’t get out of position to often, and even joined the rush. Thumbs up from a guy that has been very critical of you.

Pits – He played his best game of the season, but I still think he could play better. And do you see what happens when you shoot?

Corvo – I thought Corvo played decent tonight. He didn’t make any glaring mistakes. Not a great game, but it was an improvement.

POS – I went back on forth on Patty all night. Sometimes I thought he was not playing that well, then he would put together a good shift. I guess I thought his effort was inconsistent last night. I am wondering why POS took so many faceoffs compared to Sutter last night.

Lieutenant WrapAround – The kid is for real! He really seems to be creating some opportunities. And he’s not backing down from anyone even though he is 4’ 2" and is getting thrown around like a rag doll. The only thing is; I would like to see him actually take some more shots rather than just trying to stuff it all the time.

Babs – He made a few good plays, but he also made some mistakes. He got better as the game went on, but I’m just not sure about him. The 2nd SJ goal was a horrible mistake by him; he needs to play smarter there.

PP – The powerplay actually looked good at the start; we kept the zone, made good passes, and had scoring chances. Then it feel apart. The last couple of powerplays looked horrible. We couldn’t even gain the zone and we looked like a lost. We need to take advantage of the man advantage if we are going to do anything this season.

Defense – Way to go guys! That was a pretty good team effort last night. For the most part everybody did there job and Cam made save after save. The key is for us to take this game and build on it. There are going to be ups and downs, but knowing the team can play this way is a positive.

Overall, great win that I was not expecting. For as bad as things worked in Vancouver, things worked well in San Jose. I’m not fooling myself, thinking this Canes team is really good or anything, we still have a long way to go. I’m still not understanding playing certain players with others. But the Staal/LaRose group was good tonight; Jussi though still doesn’t seem himself. The Skinner-Ruutu-Cole line was pretty good, that might be a combination that works. I don’t get the TK on Sutter’s line; Sutter needs more talent to play with just like Staal. I thought the 4th line was very good at the start of the game. I really enjoy watching Bowman & Dalpe play!

As much as i like seeing Bowman and Dalpe up here…………they finished with 5 and 6 minutes played….i WANT to watch them with the big club but is it hurting their developmeent playing so few minutes?

I’m going to say it again; Staal had a very good night in the faceoff circle considering who he was going up against.

13 of 25 for 52% total

2 of 2 against Nichol – last years #1 faceoff man at 60.6%.
3 of 3 against Pavelski – last years #4 faceoff man at 58.1%
7 of 15 against Thornton – decent showing against last years #16 faceoff man at 53.9%.

Amazing what can happen when you really actually do crash the net.