Sometimes a playoff series is all about ebbs & flows. Carolina is on the verge of clinching this series with a win tonight despite playing maybe five good periods of hockey through four games. They were dominant for most of Game 1, fell off in Game 2, looked out of their depth at the end of Game 3 and had to survive an early tidal wave from the Islanders before taking over Game 4.
This is how things are going to be with the roster in its current state (and short another top-six winger after Game 2). Their system & team defense can keep the scoreboard close, but they can’t suffocate on the forecheck or dominate territorially with their current group of wingers. This is going to be more of a problem with tie games or when they’re trying to come from behind, but where it has the most danger is how the Canes like to get the puck out of the zone. Flipping the puck out & having the forwards chase it down has been their go-to method for years. They’ve tried passing to the weakside a little more this series because the Isles changed their approach from having a defenseman stay back to intercept the clearing attempt to contesting the player exiting the zone along the wall.
This is where Teravainen is missed. Whether it’s being in the right position, being hard on the puck or absorbing hits, he is one of their more reliable wingers with getting the puck out of the zone & it’s a big part of why the Canes top line is so good. The forwards have been skating the puck out more than usual this series, but there are always going to be times where the fowards just need to relieve pressure & the current wingers have all struggled with this.
That said, they’ve gotten themselves to a good spot despite this & Game 4 was a big step forward. They didn’t dominate the pace of play, but they found openings and were able to get into their comfort zone with defending a lead for the first time all series.
The Numbers
Injuries have played a role, but I did not expect the Islanders to have the stronger forecheck even if that’s their bread & butter. They’ve been the better team at recovering the puck & setting up shop in the offensive zone since Game 2 and Carolina’s had a devil of a time with keeping up with them in front of the net. The man-to-man defense is part of it because the Isles run so much of their offense through point shots with traffic & it’s tough to box out someone if you spent the entire shift chasing them around. They also run into situations where a smaller player is covering a bigger forward instead of covering their point. The risk Carolina usually takes here is they’re okay with risking deflections & close-range chances where Raanta can take away the lower part of the net. They just don’t want to give Barzal, Pulock or Horvat having any room to shoot in the high slot or between the faceoff circles because that’s where their goalies tend to get burned (see Barzal’s goal in Game 2).
They can get by on this strategy in the first round, but it will be tougher against New York or New Jersey.
Something else I didn’t expect? Carolina has been the better rush team. They’re still not carrying the puck much, but they are getting a higher percentage of their chances off the rush than usual. You saw the bones of this in Game 1 with Kotkaniemi’s line and it was Aho’s line doing most of the damage in Game 4. They had to be more opportunistic about it than usual because most of them came off NYI mistakes (Romanov fanning on a dump-in, Pelech facing the wrong way on the penalty kill, Palmieri throwing a grenade into the slot with both defensemen pinching). They did a good job of reading some of the Isles offensive zone tendencies & it was nice to see some of the top players on the team carry the mail instead of having Jordan Staal’s line do all the work again.
One of those tendencies is how often the Isles activate their defense to join the play. They had seven deflections from the point or from a defenseman and their leader in scoring chance assists is currently Ryan Pulock. They pinch hard to break Carolina’s structure & it was working early in Game 4. Carolina took advantage of a miscue off a poor pass in the offensive zone & it turned into Seth Jarvis’ breakaway goal. I don’t know if they can keep going to the well on this, but they only need to need one more game.
I expect to hear from Mat Barzal at least once before this series is over. He has only one goal, but leads the Isles in shot assists (although Carolina’s made the pass go through an extra layer) and eventually the luck will turn around if he gets enough chances.
Carolina’s leader in primary shot assists & chance assists at 5v5? Jordan Martinook. Not ideal, but at least Aho & Jarvis are coming off good games.
How about Mackenzie MacEachern in his first game with the team? I’m not sure how often something like that has happened for someone who wasn’t a top prospect, but it was awesome to see him play such a big role. Carolina needed literally any winger to step up & they got that. I’ve wondered if he would be a good fit when I saw his name come up, if only because he’s a natural winger who likes to hit and not a center they’re shoehorning into a different position.