Regular Season, Game 62: Hurricanes v. New York Rangers

It has been a rough week for the Canes. They're coming off their third straight loss, a 4-3 loss to Washington in a shootout on Friday night, in a game that they led late before allowing a late power play goal and then failing to score in the shootout to drop the division matchup. Despite the disappointing decision, the team's home point streak moved to 14 games, one shy of the franchise record. Seth Jarvis scored twice in his return to the lineup to lead the charge and Antti Raanta stopped 37 of 40 to lead the team to the one point. The Rangers are coming to town for the second time this season, visiting on January 21. The Canes were all over the Rangers through the first 40 minutes, jumping out to a 5-1 lead with five different goal scorers. New York fought back to bring it within two, but Tony DeAngelo scored on the power play and went absolutely nuts to secure a 6-3 win for the Canes. DeAngelo has three points in his first game against his former team, while Aho added three, and Trocheck and Svechnikov had two. Andersen stopped 20 of 23 shots to get the win. Andersen will start again tonight and DeAngelo will return to the lineup. The return of DeAngelo is perfect because Nino Niederreiter will not be available tonight after being suspended for a dangerous slash on a Capitals player while he was on the bench. The Canes will go with 11 forwards and seven defensemen to counter the Rangers' attack. 

The Rangers played last night in Tampa Bay and this will be their third game in four games, just like the Canes. Igor Shesterkin outdueled Andrei Vasilevskiy last night as Mika Zibanejad scored with 16 seconds left in the third period to give the Rangers a 2-1 win. The Canes' recent struggles have allowed the Rangers to get back on the team's heels. The hope is that the goalie matchup was going to be a battle of the two best goalies in the league this season but with Shesterkin playing last night, it's a coin flip who the Rangers will put in the net. Alexander Georgiev started the last matchup and it didn't end well for him. I'll be at this game in person, so this is going to be an interesting environment. I expect there to be a large contingency of Rangers fans at PNC Arena tonight, which shouldn't come as a surprise. The Canes really need this win after two tough losses. 

Thoughts on the Game

My brother and I were two of many Caniacs amongst a serious sea of blue jerseys in PNC Arena tonight. We had the misfortune of sitting in front of a Rangers fan that didn't stop talking the entire game, found a way to use the F-word in every sentence, and talk poorly of Georgiev and other Rangers throughout the entire game. My head does hurt a little bit from listening to him all night, but that really feels like sour grapes since the Canes lost this game. I think saying the Canes lost this game is a little harsh. Yes, on the scoreboard they lost 2-0, but they outshot the Rangers by about a thousand and spent most of the game in from of Georgiev. The problem is that they didn't score on him for 60 minutes. The Canes absolutely got goalied tonight. It was very reminiscent of Carter Hart's win in Raleigh or anytime the Canes have played Anton Forsberg this season. The Canes had all sorts of chances to score too. Trocheck hit the goalpost short-handed. Necas missed the net a few times on good chances. They pushed the puck wide a hand full of times in the third period. The Canes could've won this game is probably deserved to. There isn't anything Andersen could've done on the Kreider goal and he played well outside of that when he saw action. I thought they played fine all night. Having DeAngelo back made the power play look a little better, but he was otherwise not too noticeable. I've never been a fan of going 11/7, but it made sense given the parameters tonight. It stinks to lose to a division team and end the home point streak, but you can't dwell on that too much. I'm not going to give out stars of the game just because I'm tired. 

Final Thoughts

This was the last game before tomorrow's 3 PM trade deadline and it looks like addressing the forward group is going to be the priority. Being shut out in the last game before the deadline seems to indicate something needs to change sooner rather than later. I'm not going to speculate who the Canes should go after because I don't work in the front office and have no clue what they're thinking. I wouldn't be surprised if they don't make any moves, but who knows really. The Canes are in a decent place despite their four-game losing streak. They lead the Penguins and Rangers by three points with 20 games remaining. They're going to make the playoffs, we just don't know where they'll be. I'm not going to look too much into any loss, especially not tonight's. I'm excited to see what happens tomorrow because deadline days are always my favorites.