Games 3-4: Survival

Mmmm, crow. Mmmmm, tasty crow.

The Carolina Hurricanes withstood absolutely everything the Montreal Canadiens could throw at them for two games, and came out of la belle province with two wins and a tied series. Cam Ward was nothing short of stellar in Game 3, and strong if not required to be as spectacular in Game 4, while captain Rod Brind’Amour was everywhere when the Canes needed him. No home team has won a game this series, but Carolina needs to reverse that trend at least once as they regained home ice tonight.

Refereeing incompetence played a role again in Game 4. Habs fans will scream about Justin Williams again escaping 4 or 5 for an inadvertent high stick in the third period. To this Caniac, though, that pales next to, after a Habs rally to tie, Carolina having a go-ahead goal in the second period waved off after trail ref Tim Peel claimed first goaltender interference, then to have blown the whistle from the neutral zone during a goal-mouth scrum. As the front ref earlier in the period, Peel missed an obvious penalty called by trailer Don van Massenhoven; Carolina’s FSN South TV team of John Forslund and Tripp Tracy speculated during the second intermission that Peel was trying to pay van Massenhoven back, if screwing the Canes in the process. For that matter, Carolina’s true go-ahead goal in the third could just as easily have been disallowed for pre-goal contact that was less incidental, if not interfering directly in the play.

Tropical Depression

Carolina just lost 6-5 in the second overtime to Montreal in Game 2 of their first-round series, putting the Habs up 2-0 on the way home to the Bell Centre for two games that could end this magical year for the Canes.

I suppose it’s early to write an obituary, and I’d love to eat my words. But Carolina probably could have survived either the Cole injury or Gerber’s meltdown. The combination of the two, though, is what killed the Hurricanes. A correspondent to the News and Observer’s playoff blog did the analysis of the Cole injury’s effect on linemates Staal and Stillman, and both averaged half a point per game less after Brooks Orpik broke Cole’s neck in March. Carolina’s offense never recovered.

Meanwhile, Martin Gerber simply ran out of gas: his NHL career high in appearances was 32 before this season, last year was his professional high with 50 split between Switzerland and the Swedish Elite League, but this year he played 60 regular season games plus the Olympics. It proved to be too much, and his mediocre to bad play recently has reflected it. Cam Ward isn’t ready for the full NHL grind yet, but he’s going to have to handle at least 30 games next year. Gerber can’t do this himself.

So you have that confluence of problems. Add the Carolina scheme to that list in the narrow case of multiple-OT playoff games. It’s still a trade-off I’d make in a second, but the high-tempo style the Canes played all year is a detriment if the game goes to lengthy amounts of overtime. Legs are done after about ten extra minutes, and after that you get fatigue penalties, major line mix-and-match (was that Chad LaRose killing a penalty?!), and a set of intractable problems.

Give Cam Ward major credit overall for his play in this game, and he should absolutely start Game 3. But I’ll play the bad guy here myself and point out that, after the Canes took the 4-3 lead, he lost focus for all of a minute, and Montreal made him pay. I’m least worried about him, though. He’s a rookie backup goaltender, he’s here to learn. And he will.

Mostly, I just hate Brooks Orpik. It was a beautiful year before one lousy Pittsburgh thug playing out the string ushered the stench of death into the room. And for it, the new NHL gave him three meaningless games’ punishment.

I guess in some ways we’re still old, snakebit Hartford, even nine years on.

NHL 1st Round Preview

What’s this? Josh writing a blog entry? Gotta answer when the master calls…

The overarching theme of the 2006 Stanley Cup playoffs will be whether the league is truly serious about enforcing the new standard for obstruction. Some observers have noted (and some even hailed) a more lax standard on minor off-the-puck stick fouls in the past month, the supporters claiming that those obstruction fouls are irrelevant to the flow of play and only serve to provide needless stoppages and power plays. They’re wrong. Those fouls look minor, yes, but off-the-puck movement is what makes the difference between a structured four-on-three odd-man rush and a two-on-three dump-and-chase.

I’m hardly unbiased, as the Carolina Hurricanes’ success has keyed on the advantage offered to a fast (if less physical), skillful team by the new standards. Carolina is dead in the water whenever they meet New Jersey if Hudson Bay Rules return.

That said, here are my first-round picks.

Eastern Conference

• (1) Ottawa in 6 over (8) Tampa Bay: the Bolts are too inconsistent to survive a best-of-seven, and Ray Emery’s on fire.
• (2) Carolina in 6 over (7) Montreal: the Hurricanes won’t repeat the 4-0 season sweep over the Canadiens without Erik Cole on the top line and José Théodore in the other net. That said, Carolina matches up well in this series: the Habs have neither enough skill to play the Canes’ speed game, nor enough physicality to interrupt it as Washington did at points in the Canes-Capitals late-season five-game set.
• (3) New Jersey in 6 over (6) New York Rangers: to win this series, the Blueshirts need to get their heads about them, and, like the Canes, hope the rules return. I’m pessimistic about both, (a) slightly more than (b). That said, in a tightly-called series, go NYR in 7.
• (5) Philadelphia in 6 over (4) Buffalo: I’m factoring in the rules here too, but I’m more convinced of this one than NJD-NYR. Philadelphia has too much experience to go out in the first round, and Buffalo isn’t quite deep enough for me to like them in this potential bloodbath.

Western Conference

• (1) Detroit in 7 over (8) Edmonton: this call is only slightly influenced by watching the Oilers’ 2-1 second-period lead in Game 1 as I write this. I think Detroit will need a wake-up call in the first round after cruising to the President’s Trophy in the last couple of weeks, but they’re too good to lose to this Oilers team.
• (2) Dallas in 5 over (7) Colorado: not this year, Avs fans, and not with that goaltender. (For that matter, I don’t think Aebischer was the answer either.) Dallas draws a bit of a break here, because Marty Turco’s been shaky himself recently, but nothing like the season-long Théodore disaster or Peter Budaj’s late-season slump.
• (3) Calgary in 6 over (6) Anaheim: Kiprusoff wins this one.
• (5) San Jose in 7 over (4) Nashville: this was the hardest one for me to pick, because I think Nashville will be fine for one round (if not more) with Chris Mason — I just think the Sharks are on too much of a run.

Canes get Recchi

Gotta take a (non-smoking) smoke break for this one.

The Hurricanes just picked up Mark Recchi from Pittsburgh for LW Niklas Nordgren, minor leaguer Krys Kolanos and a performance-dependent draft pick. This is huge. Carolina is completely loaded for bear in the 2006 Stanley Cup playoffs now — I’m still not sure how to react to seeing my team act like Toronto or the Yankees in acquiring everyone in sight around the deadline.

One thing this deal screams to me, though, is that the Canes have no expectation of getting Erik Cole back. Josef Vasicek will be back within the next three weeks, yielding some major line reshuffling. Adding Joe back in, assuming that Peter Laviolette continues to dress seven defensemen, and barring another injury, the forward lines could look like:

There’s no room for Cole. I’ve already demoted all the rookies (some of whom are very much in the Canes’ future plans, like 2004 first-rounder Andrew Ladd). Craig Adams is the most marginal player forward on the roster, but the (unrelated) Adams Family has been an outstanding checking forward pair no matter who double-shifts on their wing.

If the Canes don’t make a deep playoff run this year, it won’t be for lack of trying. Kudos to Jim Rutherford and Peter Karmanos for making the push.

Cold Comfort

Team USA and Team Canada were both unceremoniously dumped from the Olympic men’s hockey tournament Wednesday, America 4-2 by Finland and Canada 2-0 by Russia. They won silver and gold in Salt Lake City four years ago, but will fly home from Turin empty-handed this time. Reactions from the hockey press both north and south of the 49th have been rather vitriolic at times, but I’m not sure that’s called for.

The general tenor in the USA has been the calmer of the two for two reasons: this team wasn’t expected to do well, and hockey simply doesn’t matter as much here. The team’s final record was 1-4-1, but the flow of play actually looked better than most hockey observers expected from this team before the tournament; the three preliminary losses were by one goal, and America wasn’t able to finish plays with any regularity.

American hockey is caught in a generation gap this year. The core of this team has been intact since the 1996 World Cup of Hockey win, and the brightest American stars since then are currently in college or just beginning their NHL careers: expected 2006 #1 draft pick Phil Kessel at the University of Minnesota, 2005 Carolina #2 Jack Johnson at the University of Michigan, New Jersey’s Zach Parise, etc. Those players will feature at the 2010 games in Vancouver, but were not ready yet; meanwhile, the ‘96ers were mostly in their upper 30s or early 40s, and it showed, especially on the larger international ice surface that required consistent hard skating. It’s arguable that head coach Peter Laviolette and general manager Don Waddell could have selected a few more young players, or even changed up a veteran or two (Brian Leetch for Derian Hatcher seemed to be the primary desire pre-Olympics), but results likely wouldn’t have been much better. You can’t win all the time, and sometimes we Americans have trouble with that concept.

That said, a few players did earn positive recognition. At the risk of being partisan, Erik Cole of the Carolina Hurricanes was the best player on the ice for the United States over the course of the tournament. Brian Gionta of the New Jersey Devils and the Islanders’ Jason Blake were both all over the ice, and for three games in the preliminaries, Rick DiPietro shut us all up with the kind of goaltending that made him the #1 overall pick in 2003. His kamikaze style scares the daylights out of me, and by all reports he’s got an ego and a half, but he cares, and I love how proud he is to play for his country.