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Canes win another one-goal game
by David Lee on 01/04/09 at 12:37 PM ET
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On Saturday, the Hurricanes beat the Lightning 3-2. They didn’t play well, but they played well enough. Since Pittsburgh lost their game, the Hurricanes were able to get a stronger hold on their seventh place standing.
This was the tenth one-goal game out of the last 14 games played. Of the four others, there were two 4-2 losses to the Bruins, each of which included an empty net goal. I guess you can lump those in with the one-goal games, making 12 of the last 14 fall into that category.
There’s some people who would be concerned about that. It would seem that they’re playing pre-lockout hockey. Slow, methodical, grinding play. It isn’t necessarily exciting, but the upside is that they can hang with anyone if they can impose this type of play. They slowed down the high-flying Bruins and the sizzling Flyers. The downtick is that it doesn’t allow Carolina to run away with games they should run away with.
This type of play is boring, and will raise the ire of fans across the league, but I think it’ll help the team when it comes to the final stretch of the season, and more importantly, the playoffs. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.
Last night, it wasn’t the big line that did the work. It was the third line. Chad LaRose, Matt Cullen and Scott Walker all worked very hard. LaRose was especially impressive. With respect to the third line, Coach Mo finally did what I’ve wanted all season: he put Scott Walker there. It’s not that I don’t like Scott Walker. It’s just that I don’t think he needs to be in the top six. Now that Justin Viva Williams is up to speed, it made that move much easier. But even without Viva, I thought it was a mistake to have Walker on the second line.
Actually, it isn’t making much of a difference these days. The second line of Ray Whitney / Rod Brind’Amour / Justin Williams is getting almost exactly the same amount of ice time as the “third” line of LaRose / Cullen / Walker.
Using the very small sample size of last night’s game, Whitney, Brindy and Viva had 16:06, 16:50 and 15:52 TOI respectively. The line of Sharpie, Cullen and Walker, meanwhile had 17:00, 15:58 and 15:34 respectively. The collective difference is just 20 seconds. This has been a trend over the past few weeks. Taking a shift away from the second line, giving it to the third line. Not because the second line is playing poorly, but because the third line is playing well and deserves the reward of more ice time.
Carolina will be off until Tuesday, when the Devils come to town. It will be the first time that Brandon Sutter will get to play against his dad Brent.
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About Red & Black Hockey
David Lee is a restaurant manager with an unused degree in political science. He can be found at Carolina Hurricanes games, Scrabble tournaments and indie-rock shows. Sometimes, all in the same day.
David has contributed to CBC.ca for their Stanley Cup playoff coverage in 2006 and to the New York Times Slapshot blog for theirs in 2008. Red and Black Hockey was founded in July of 2005.
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