With no margin for error, ‘no-show’ Hurricanes playing a dangerous game
When you let things come down to a broken stick, or a linesman throwing the wrong guy out of a faceoff, your fate is out of your hands. And probably has been for a while.
The Carolina Hurricanes could point to either as the reason the Vegas Golden Knights scored the late game-winner Friday night, but they had only themselves to blame for letting things come down to such relatively minor twists of fate.
There have been more moments of frustration for Rod Brind’Amour this season than in what amounted to a fairy-tale debut, but this 4-3 loss seemed to particularly irk the coach, as it absolutely should. The Hurricanes went into the break feeling pretty good about things, and those 10 days felt more like nine months after a first period that saw them outshot 16-6 and down two goals after less than 10 minutes.
“Terrible,” Brind’Amour said. “It’s not acceptable to come out and play like that for two periods. Two-and-a-half periods, to be honest with you.”
This is a team with no margin for error. The Hurricanes have as little security in the playoff race as they typically have at the end of January, which is to say none at all, thanks to an NHL playoff system that contrives to leave the 12th-best team in the league out of a playoff spot. That’s where the Hurricanes stand after Friday. Very little has to go wrong to send things spiraling south. A great deal has to go right to keep things headed north.
“We’re in crunch mode here,” said Jordan Martinook, whose play earned him a battlefield promotion to the top line with Sebastian Aho and Teuvo Teravainen on a night few distinguished themselves. “We’re right on the edge of it.”
There is no room for a performance like this one, for example, when two teams came out of a week-long break and only one looked like it. A furious third-period comeback put the Hurricanes into position to claim at least a point, undeserved as it may have been, only for fortune to intervene, and not on their behalf.
Joel Edmundson’s stick broke while firing a shot, and the resulting dribbler led first to a Vegas break the other way and next to a Aho hooking penalty trying to slow things down. On the ensuing faceoff in the Carolina end, the linesman kicked Jordan Staal out of the circle as the Hurricanes argued his stick was on the ice and Paul Stastny actually encroached on Staal. They were right to be concerned: Stastny beat Brock McGinn and Vegas scored the winner 6 seconds later.
It took the Hurricanes about 47 minutes to get in gear, but two goals less than four minutes apart from McGinn and Aho got the building up and engaged, and it started to feel like one of those nights when the noise might carry the Hurricanes through. The euphoria was short-lived, from broken stick to broken hearts in a matter of seconds.
“We got what we deserved,” Brind’Amour said. “It’s a tough one. We played about eight minutes of hockey. The situation we’re in, that’s a tough one.”
Too many “no-shows,” Brind’Amour said, and for a coach who goes out of his way to avoid criticizing his players -- Nino Niederreiter’s impending status as a healthy scratch was addressed only cryptically Friday morning -- it had the ring of an indictment. A few more nights like this, and the case will be closed entirely.
