On the brink

Some stats, mostly words

It feels like a bad time to write about the Hurricanes because I could easily be writing the team’s postmortem in another 24 hours depending on how Game 4 shakes out. The team’s core problem is also pretty black-and-white. They’ve scored only one goal on Sergei Bobrovsky in only three games, a deflection from defenseman Jalen Chatfield not even two minutes into Game 2.

Since then, they’ve gotten nothing. It’s obviously not for lack of trying. Even with the team’s finishing issues that have been galaxy brained to the point where everyone ignores the forest to dissect the pith of one tree, this series has pretty much been a coinflip with Florida showing how small of a gap there is between 1st and 8th in the conference. They’ve gotten stellar goaltending and have kept the chances close enough to the point where they can control parts of the game & let Bobrovsky do the rest.

At least that’s how the first two games went. Game 3 was a different animal because they seemed to approach that game knowing how starved Carolina was for any offense. They basically gave the Hurricanes the zone, sat back and dared them to find a way to beat Bobrovsky. It was almost like they were killing off a penalty for 60 minutes.

This is why Carolina can be a frustrating team to analyze if you’re a fan. They don’t get beat in the traditional sense. It’s rare for them to get run out of the building or have nights where effort is the problem. Instead, you have games like this where the problem is cut-and-dry. They can’t score, they’re controlling play but can’t create chances & Bobrovsky is stopping the ones they do get.

We’re also at the point of the series where I don’t know how much of this is correctable for the coaching staff. I’m sure they’re preaching the same things about getting shots on net with traffic, looking for deflections & playing the shot volume game. Players habits have sat in by now and the message from Brind’Amour has been mostly positive, albeit in a frustrated tone.

There are also a lot of things that are easy for me as a fan to point out & say “do that instead” when the players have maybe a millisecond to react in action. That’s kind of what Game 3 felt like. Through 40 minutes, Carolina looked pretty good. They left offense on the table, but they weren’t giving anything up and they have found ways to win games like that this year. Then the third period happened & they could only muster nine shots that weren’t blocked & two scoring chances before pulling the goaltender for the extra attacker. Eight of those shots were in the first 10 minutes.

This is what concerned me the most. Florida’s in a position where they can play however they want, whereas Carolina couldn’t get to their base-level offense when things got tough. I don’t expect that to carry over into Game 4, but what happens if it follows the same script? Granted, this isn’t unique to the Hurricanes. It’s late in the season and it’s human nature for frustration to creep in when a plan that has worked all season has you in a 3-0 hole in a playoff series.

Brind’Amour also never struck me as a coach that has a “we have to play this style or else” type of attitude, because certain players are allowed to break outside the dump-and-chase mantra. That said, this is how they play most of the time. They have a comfort zone & when they have to break outside of it, things can get rough. We see this a lot with teams that like to carry the puck in for their offense instead of playing dump-and-chase. With Carolina, it’s been the reverse this series.

If Carolina’s attacking off the rush, it’s usually from forcing a turnover in the neutral zone & catching defenders flat-footed. This series, they’ve had to work harder for their rush chances. 12 of their 30 shots off the rush are off defensive zone retrievals, where they have to beat a forecheck up the ice instead of capitalizing on a turnover. Only 11 of their rush shots have come from neutral zone plays (turnovers & reloads where they intercept a zone exit after it crosses the blue line). In my SEAHAC project, they were one of a few teams who scored the majority of their rush goals through neutral zone plays, most of which were turnovers. They were better about this against the Devils, but the Panthers forecheck hasn’t been as aggressive and their defensemen are doing a good job of staying back to intercept any chip plays by the Hurricanes. Even if they’re getting past them, there’s a layer or two of interference to make things just a little tougher for them to execute.

They’ve also carried the puck into the zone 70 times & created a scoring chance on only 15 of those entries. This is a 21% success rate & lower than the 26% they had in both the Islanders & the Devils series. Even then, this might be generous because Carolina’s had a few rushes that were of the one-and-done variety or shots that were within the faceoff circles that Bobrovsky didn’t even have to move to stop.

There was also a bit of a difference from Games 1-2 to Game 3. Carolina played their usual brand of heavy hockey where they were getting most of their chances through one-touch plays, rebounds and deflections. In Game 3, I had them with only two deflections (albeit I’m very stingy with tracking these). I’m not sure if this was intentional or Florida taking away the slot, but they had to work to get any space in the offensive zone & were limited to only 10 chances all game. This sequence from Aho sums up some of their struggles.

Carolina does a good job below the goal line to create this chance, and it’s from the guy they want. Bob shoulders it aside & Noesen is behind the net instead of at the front to scoop up a rebound. Then the play goes low-to-high and Aho can’t get another touch on the puck before the sequence ends. I’m at the point where Carolina playing the long game of wearing the other team down with constant point shots & retrievals doesn’t bother me as much, but it’s also frustrating to see potential goals go to waste.

This is kind of where I’m at with this series. They probably don’t deserve to be down 3-0 but they haven’t played well enough to where I think the results should be flipped. I always get annoyed with the criticisms about shooting percentage & all that because the goalposts always seem to move. First it was they can’t make the playoffs with this system & they did that in Brind’Amour’s first year. Then it was about sustaining that success & they’ve been one of the better teams in the East since. Then it was about getting past the second round, which they did this year. Now it’s “they can’t win a Cup.” Which is probably true this year with the way things are going, but everyone made up their mind about this team before Bobrovsky turned into 99 Dominik Hasek against them.

That isn’t to say there aren’t things they can be doing better. I said after the New Jersey series that they have another level & they’ve yet to reach that against Florida. Now it might be too late for it to matter.