Series Stories: Carolina vs. New Jersey

Carolina "flipping the switch" against the Devils

Recency bias is a hell of a drug. Outside of Tampa Bay & maybe Winnipeg, the Hurricanes went into the playoffs with maybe the worst vibes out of anyone. The forward injuries were discussed ad nauseum, so was their quiet trade deadline where they tinkered around the margins while everyone else in the East ponied up. They limped into the post-season and the one thing you could hope for as a fan is the team “flipping the switch” & returning to what we saw in December once the stakes got higher.

The first round win over the Islanders didn’t do much to calm those nerves. Sure they won, but it was a struggle & they didn’t hit their stride until Game 5 (which they lost ironically). Everything else looked similar to what we saw in the last month of the season. They played a rough brand of hockey where they had to scratch & claw for their offense unless the Isles turned the puck over. If their power play didn’t come to life in Games 1 & 3, it could have been an ugly series. Lucky for them, they were playing an Isles team with a similar offensive zone strategy & worse special teams. They were going to need more to get past New Jersey.

Then the switch flipped & they got it. Game 3’s 8-4 loss aside, Carolina looked as good as they had in months & didn’t need to break their mold. They still played most of their game on the forecheck, kept the chance count relatively low and stayed patient with creating their rush offense through turnovers. The difference was they dictated the pace of the series and were a little better at preventing chances, allowing fewer than 10 in only two of the five games. It’s probably easier to do that against a team that likes to attack off the rush compared to a team like the Islanders that thrives off turnovers (which is tougher to prepare for), but the surprise was Carolina’s offensive output. They scored a lot of goals, but also had an easier time with getting chances without having to resort to shooting from everywhere hoping to get a deflection (although that worked better in this series than it usually does).

What went into this and how did Carolina get themselves back on track?

The Story Behind The Stats

The series is always a little more back-and-forth than the scoring chance count indicates. In this case, you had one Carolina coast after taking an early lead in Game 1, dominate in Game 2, Jersey turning it around in Game 3, Carolina doing the same to them in Game 4 & an evenly contested Game 5 that Carolina won in overtime. Still, the pendulum swung more in Carolina’s favor and their process was a little better overall. They were committing fewer turnovers & were creating more entries that led to scoring chances, nullifying the advantage New Jersey had in team speed.

One thing that annoys me a little with microstat recaps, is there’s a lot of factors & nuance that goes into this beyond “this team carried the puck in more than the other.” The Devils did that here, but you have to keep in mind that New Jersey is a team that carries the puck in on almost 55% of their entries in the regular season, so dumping the puck in this much is playing outside their comfort zone. The Hurricanes, on the other hand, are one of the few teams in the league that dumps the puck in on almost 60% of their entries. They’re content playing this way & it showed in this series.

What made a difference is when they could carry the puck in, they made the most of it. A perfect example of this is Seth Jarvis & his goal in Game 1.

A trend throughout these playoffs is that controlled entries are at more of a premium. Teams are either really shutting off the neutral zone or offenses are playing more conservative because they don’t want to turn the puck over. Either way, if you can carry it in, it’s bearing more rewards than it did last season.

The formula for Carolina’s rush offense hasn’t changed much. It’s a turnover high in the zone & Jarvis is able to quick strike the other way. This is off a pretty innocuous play too, which I imagine caught the Devils pretty off-guard, but the Canes seemed to have New Jersey’s cycle game scouted well early in the series. From then, the game was all about disruption on the forecheck & making it tough for them to put 2-3 passes together out of the zone. Even if the first forward in couldn’t create much pressure, the high forward did a good job of getting in the way to make the Devils restart.

The other side of this is the Devils only had two games where their forecheck was effective. They got some chances off turnovers in the other games, but Carolina caught them being over-aggressive and created counter-attack chances the other way. This is where three of their goals came from in Game 4, the Brett Pesce goal in particular shows where things went off the rails.

This is off the Devils trying to salvage some zone time off a rush by Luke Hughes got broken up. The idea is fine, you let your top line go to work in the offensive zone & kill a shift by Staal’s line. The problem is that Carolina immediately stops the forecheck & gets the puck out of the zone with two Devils caught deep. They play a little broken game of tic-tac-toe in the neutral zone & Staal gets a clean entry down the wing. Staal has a step on the defender & a pterodactyl wingspan, so he can get the puck to the net on an awkward wrap-around chance. Basically a vehicle to move the play into a more dangerous area.

In a vacuum, this should be a nothing play, but the Devils forwards all hustled back to protect the house, leaving them with four defenders covering one Hurricane. The puck bounces to the slot where Jack Drury comes in from out of the frame & sets up Pesce for a chance with a lot of room for him to pick a corner. He gets some help from the Devil forward in front who was staring at Staal & the puck the entire time.

The second Martin Necas goal was similar, albeit a little different with three Devils going to one side in the offensive zone & Staal getting the puck by them. They got stuck defending the rush in a very awkward formation as a result.

Transition & the forecheck are more linked together than we think. Carolina prefers the game be played in the latter, but if the other team is sloppy on their forecheck, more space to skate opens up & they’re going to take it. The Devils gave them plenty of chances to do that all series.

Game 5 is when things started to turn. The Devils played a more patient game, dumping the puck in by choice & not having their defensemen be so aggressive with keeping pucks in. You could see it in the second period with how they were trying to keep the play alive enough to prevent Carolina from changing even if came at the expense of offense. It’s a less aggressive version of what Carolina was doing all series. Playing the long game in hopes that they’ll eventually wear out the defenders & get that game-breaking turnover.

The frustrating part for them is that this paid off a few minutes later with the Timo Meier chance which….well yeah. Game 5 was pretty much a toss-up, so I think Carolina dodged a bullet by ending the series there. They were still in control, but you never want to give a good team any sliver of hope.

Game Score

• It’s not often I say that “Jordan Martinook is due,” but he had no points in the Islanders series despite leading the team in primary shot assists. This series he was more of a shooter, moving from Staal’s line to Kotkaniemi’s and finally seeing some reward for his hard work. The two shorthanded goals were nice too.

• Brent Burns had an excellent series and was about as mistake-free with the puck as I’ve ever seen him (3 botched retrievals & 1 failed exit all series). That said, Jaccob Slavin was Carolina’s best player. When the Devils could break through Carolina’s forecheck, Slavin was there to negate the entry or to stop the play along the wall. He was always there to play centerfield defending the rush so Burns could play more aggressive & he also took the reins to lead a few rushes himself, having one of his better offensive performances in awhile (15 primary shot assists, 5 chance setups). Of course, defense is what he is known for and nobody was better than him here. New Jersey tried to enter the zone against him 45 times & created a chance against him only twice. Yes, two chances at five-on-five against him all series. Marvelous work all around from him.

• Kotkaniemi’s an interesting player because he has either been at the top or the bottom of the Game Score chart depending on the night. He’s been at the top pretty frequently since moving to a new line, playing the Jordan Staal Jr. role to a T. He drew the Nico Hischier matchup in the games where Aho didn’t and was great as the disruptive high forward. Almost led to the game-winning goal in overtime (which he did eventually setup).
  
  

  
  
  I still don’t know what this guy’s ceiling is because his play has been so hot-and-cold. Sometimes he’s the team’s most played forward at five-on-five and some nights he barely plays over 10 minutes. Last series he looked like the surrogate to Vincent Trocheck & this series he was a checker. Guess this is just part of a young player navigating the waters of the NHL, but this series was the most impressed I’ve been with him as a Hurricane.

• I think Lindy Ruff was a little late on breaking the “In case of emergency play Luke Hughes” glass. He got dinged for a few minuses, but he solved a lot of the Devils breakout issues in the first two games, especially when it came to evading the first forechecker. You could argue that it might not have had much of an impact, because outlet passes won’t help you much if your forwards keep throwing the puck away in the neutral zone, but he seemed to find his bearings in Game 5. Eight of his puck retrievals in the defensive zone led to controlled exits, which led all New Jersey players & he also led their defensemen in controlled zone entries despite playing only three games. Again, it might have been a small detail but it was the Devils biggest need this series. This is why I think Game 5 was a bullet dodged for Carolina.

• The Jonas Siegenthaler/Dougie Hamilton pair had a rough series. Carolina only entered the zone against Hamilton 19 times compared to 41 for Siegenthaler & while they had more success picking their spots against Dougie, Siegenthaler had to work extra hard in the defensive zone this series. He had a forechecker on him the second he touched the puck & had 22 botched retrievals & failed zone exits as a result. Hamilton also had a bad series here (especially by his standards), but the minutes Siegenthaler played really took a toll on him. The ironic part is he actually did a decent job of mitigating the damage from an on-ice xG standpoint.

• I struggle with some of the Devils individual stats because Game 3 makes things look rosier than how the series actually went, especially for Nico Hischier who had 5 of his 7 five-on-five chances that game. He also led the Devils in scoring chances, which shows how much Carolina controlled that area of the game. I’m not a fan of throwing out outliers because you can’t just erase data, but if you exclude Game 3, the Devils leader in Game Score would be Michael McLeod. Woof.

• I really love what Jalen Chatfield has brought to the team this year. The Canes third pair is sheltered, but the mobility him & Gostisbehere bring is such a nice element to have when the depth lines are you there. You can count on them to chase down a loose puck to start a reset or & keep the cycle going up high instead of just shooting it into a shinpad. The team made some incremental improvements throughout the year & this was one of them.

Narratives & Storylines

The Staal Matchup

One thing commentators love to focus on whenever Carolina’s in the playoffs is how much Jordan Staal plays against the other team’s top line. It’s a narrative that annoys me because this isn’t the case during the regular season. If you look at who plays who throughout the year, Aho plays as much against the other team’s top line as Jordan, if not more. Most good teams also have more than one line to focus on now. In the playoffs last year, Carolina saw Bergeron & Pastrnak on different lines, same with Panarin & Zibanejad. Jordan got one line & Aho got the other.

This year, it was a little different. Actually very different. Jordan spent 60% of his ice time against Jack Hughes while Aho & Kotkaniemi split time against Hischier. The injuries on Carolina’s wings might have forced this to a point, as you probably want Teuvo Teravainen out there along with Aho against top lines, but the game situations also did too. Carolina led for most of the series & there wasn’t any reason to run Aho out there up 3+ goals. Playing man-to-man against Hughes is probably exhausting, so I can imagine Brind’Amour didn’t want to put any extra miles on his star player if he’s playing the long game. Hence why he had one of his standard 20+ minute games to close the series in a tie game.

I do want to talk about how good this newly formed checking line was, though. I mentioned that Staal is kind of a tricky matchup for teams, especially top lines and it’s because Jordan is deceptively skilled. He’s not very fast, but he covers a lot of ground, he kind of glides with the puck instead of rushing it into the zone & he’s just a big dude who can play the keep-away game with the best of them. Brind’Amour made an interesting switch by putting Necas & Jack Drury with him, the team’s leading goal-scorer & a rookie.

Necas struggled in the Isles series & he looked like a different player this series. There were a lot of loose pucks for him to jump on loose pucks for chances & he could play off the pass instead of trying to go 200 feet every shift. Everything just looked easier for him & it showed in the results. He led the team with 10 scoring chances & was tied for the team lead with 4 entries leading to scoring chances. IThe puck touches weren’t a frequent for him, but they were effecient. The same can be said for Drury, who took a beating in the Isles series & was a great complementary piece in this series. 9 out of his 15 shot contributions at five-on-five were scoring chances. It’s hard to say if this is just from moving to Staal’s wings or if it’s a confidence thing, but Brind’Amour nailed this either way.

Most importantly, this trio was on the ice for three Hurricanes goals & none for the Devils while matched up against Hughes.

WTF Happened in Game Three?

So, I gotta talk about that “burn the brownies” game. It’s not fair to single out Pesce & Skjei, but they had a statistical nightmare of a game being on the ice for five Devils goals during even strength play alone. Their other stats weren’t much better & they probably got a worse result than they deserved because neither Andersen & Kochetkov couldn’t stop anything. They deserved to lose that game either way & it looked like a Murphy’s Law of things.

Skjei & Pesce can be a bit of high-wire act with how they play. They get results, but I’m not going to say I’m comfortable watching them try to cover 85 feet of space on their own, seeing them pinch to keep in every loose puck Kool-Aid Man style or use all of their limbs to disrupt passing plays when there’s nobody to back them up if something goes wrong. I feel like everything fans fear could go wrong with these two happened in that game. So much of the Hurricanes game is about disruption & this pair will wait until the last split second to do that, so there’s a lot of risk involved with how they go about their business.

The Devils exploited that in just about every way possible in Game 3. Pesce’s turnover to gift Hughes a goal in Game 4 was almost like a detox because the two of them were excellent after that. Hockey is a strange game sometimes & I give these two a lot of credit for not letting bad games snowball into something catastrophic.

What About Florida?

I’ve been so dialed in on this series that I haven’t been able to watch much of Florida’s upset over Toronto, but they’ve been a sleeping giant since January or so. I am interested to see if Brind’Amour goes with the usual Aho/Barkov matchup & Staal gets the more physical matchup with Tkachuk. It’s a very tough assignment because they have the Devils skill & the Islanders physicality. Now that they’re getting saves, it’s a lot more daunting matchup than it was a month ago. One thing Carolina fans can take comfort in is that this team still has another gear to reach.