Calm Before the Storm

Shawn Mancour

The last few weeks of Hurricanes Hockey has been painful to watch at times. I love this team, up and down the lines, but some issues have been very visible on the ice. The most recent injuries to Jordan Staal and Frederick Andersen add fuel to the fire of doubt looming in my mind over a title run this year but that is not where we are going to start this story. Instead let's start with some of the positives according to my ignorant eyes.

Max Domi

I spent most of my deadline day handling business at my day job with a co-worker of mine fiending for Don Waddell to make some moves. One line I recall from him, “We cannot do nothing when Florida adds Claude F***ing Giroux”. He was right. Carolina needed some change if nothing else to give some rejuvenation to the locker room down the stretch. Guys will work harder if they have the risk of losing a lineup spot to some new talent and talent indeed was set to step into the room. At the last possible minute of the deadline Carolina flipped Egor Korskov of the KHL and Aidan Hreschuk, a freshman college player years away from NHL action to acquire Max Domi. The seventh year playmaker has been effective early on with Carolina though he has yet to post that success onto the stat sheet. He is an incredibly fast skater and very active with the stick which fits right in with the Hurricanes aggressive style of play. As the lines shake out towards the playoffs look for Domi to add some more tallys as he gets more comfortable on a set line.

Pyotr Kochetkov

Pyotr Cottontail, The Winter Soldier, Pyotr the Great. Just a few of the names I’ve seen across twitter for Mr. Kochetkov. Since joining the Canes AHL affiliate Chicago Wolves, Pyotr has been a force to be reckoned with posting a 13-1-1 record in his first fifteen games with a .921 save percentage. The kid is a STUD. Ever since coming stateside he has been a fan favorite in Chicago as well as a personal favorite of mine. If you haven’t seen the clip of him trying to throw hands with the opposing goalie I would highly recommend it. Kochetkov is electric and with the unknown length of Andersen’s injury as well as Alex Lyon, He is in line to potentially play incredibly important minutes to start off his NHL career as the Hurricanes jockey for playoff position.

Rod Brind’Amour

So honestly this has been my first season of truly paying attention to the NHL and the one thing that stability among an organization is incredibly uncommon. Teams are rolling through coaches like Wiz and Snoop with a QP and I think that is a big factor when it comes to how a team meshes. Brind’Amour has secured his spot as the Hurricane’s head coach and no one in that building has any second thoughts about. This situation affords Rod the ability to coach exactly how he wants without concerning himself with how it will impact his employment in the offseason. He truly is the rock of this organization and everything runs through him. He instills a sense of effort and poise that shows in how the team plays come puck drop. They play hard, they play fast, and they fight no matter what the scoreboard says. It all starts with effort and effort is what he embodies. I fully expect to see the boys fighting hard in the playoffs with his leadership.

Chicago Wolves

The Canes have a lot of young talent in the development pool. I get most of my info from @CanesProspects on twitter if I am being honest and they do an incredible job of showcasing our young group. The Chicago Wolves have been dominating the AHL this year with recent draft picks Pyotr Kochetkov, Jamieson Rees, and Jack Drury helping lead the way. The team has been awesome with AHL’s lead scoring tandem Andrew Poturalski and Stefan Noesen tallying a combined 170 points. The Wolves top the AHL with 102 points in the standings as of writing this and the next closest is the Stockton Heat with 92. They have a full five game lead on the next closest contender. Dominant.

Now time for some of the negatives…

Injuries

I mentioned earlier Jordan Staal and Freddie Andersen went down, that was against Colorado on Saturday night. A brutal game overall as the Canes fell 7-4, insult to (no pun intended) injury Freddie went down late after a pretty normal move right to left. As of yet I haven’t seen anything about his status but the way he went down I really wouldn’t expect him back before the first round. Why risk it? We are in the playoffs and no matter who we face the east is crazy good. As for Jordan Staal, he took a rough hit and looked to maybe have a concussion but I would expect him out of the lineup for a week or two. That’s all speculation by me though, I’ll keep an eye out for the official word.

Line Changes

It has been a while since we have seen consistent lines on the ice in Raleigh but I think it is good for us to be figuring it out now but we’ll need to figure it out soon. The lines I have liked as of late have been:

Svech - Aho - Jarvis

Turbo - Troch - Necas

Nino - Staal - Fast

Martinook - Stepan - Domi

Now with Staal injured, we will see how the coaching staff restructures for the time being. I imagine they will move Domi up to the Nino and Fast line and have Stevie Lorentz suit up. They haven’t had Stepan in the lineup much lately and I’m not sure why but hopefully he will get some more ice time. He looked good when he played. Really the only thing left to do is solidify some spots before we head into May.

Goal Scoring

I really cannot put a point to where the problem lies here but lately it just seems like the only line that can put the puck in the net has been Nino-Staal-Fast. I have truly been at a loss trying to come up with any reasons why but it just seems like Aho and Svech have been in a little bit of a shooting slump and Turbo has kind of been non-existent the last five games or so. I am not the utmost authority on quality hockey and technique, that is just what I personally have laid witness to in the past couple of weeks. 

In closing, I have full faith that the boys are going to get the ship righted as we move into the playoffs. As I said earlier they work hard and they play harder. Pucks will bounce our way, we just have to be ready to capitalize on them. The team has to keep attacking quick and shooting the puck with authority and I think they will shine bright as they skate into this postseason.