It was a game against a much worse opponent.
One against a team that was last in the Western Conference and had played the night before and were using its backup goaltender.
It was a must-win game after a bad slide. A must-win game after the night before you gave up the winning goal with barely over a minute to go. A must-win game after one of your best players went down with what will more than likely be a season-ending injury.
And somehow, the Hurricanes found a way to lose, falling to the Anaheim Ducks 2-1 in overtime.
“They were the much better team,” said head coach Rod Brind’Amour. “We couldn’t get out of our own way. We couldn’t get out of our own end clean. Just spent too much time trying to defend and that just took the sails out. We had a couple of chances here or there, but it certainly wasn’t consistent.”
The only saving grace was that James Reimer stole a point for his team by taking it to extra time in the first place stopping 35 of the 37 shots he faced, but one point isn’t good enough after the Hurricanes have already squandered so many chances.
“[Reimer] made some big saves,” Brind’Amour said. “Kept us in there, in the second period especially. We could have easily gotten behind, in the third too.”
The Hurricanes were outchanced, outshot and out-efforted and they didn’t seem to care.
“We started to get a little cute,” Jordan Staal said. “We started turning over a few pucks and if you turn over just a few, they make a couple plays back in your end and next thing you know, you’re playing d-zone for over a minute and you’re just trying to recover for the rest of the period.”
The Canes opened the game buzzing and for once in a long time it wasn’t all for nothing, at least to begin with. Setting himself up in front, Sebastian Aho tipped home a Joel Edmundson point shot to get Carolina on the board. It was Aho’s 24th goal of the season and first in seven games.
While it looked like the Canes were going to escape the first with the lead, Carolina instead suffered a complete breakdown of coverage late in the period. Ducks captain Ryan Getzlaf entered the zone and circled the net, eventually feeding a cross-ice pass to Erik Gudbranson who had snuck into the zone unmet and slipped it past Reimer.
The second period heavily favored the Ducks and marked the beginning of the poor play that dominated the rest of the game for Carolina. The third mimicked the second and despite normally dominating the shots and possession, the Hurricanes found themselves barely hanging on.
“It’s pretty evident we’re going to need everyone to pull the rope a little more, including myself,” Staal said. “We need to find ways to be better and that wasn’t it tonight. [Reimer] did a great job of keeping us in that one 1-1. We are going to need another level.”
The game went to overtime and it was a careless error by Andrei Svechnikov that set up the Duck’s Sam Steel for a breakaway which he buried for the win.
The Hurricanes have struggled all season dealing with adversity and it is evident in their lack of effort when teams start to fight back. Carolina constantly finds itself pinned in their own zone and giving up high-danger chances when pressure jumps at them.
It is also evident coming out of a loss. The Hurricanes have time and time again let problems manifest and either let opponents climb back into games or put up rather lackluster efforts. Past that, of their 21 losses, 17 have come in stretches between two to four. When one happens it statistically snowballs into more and that continues to be evident after tonight’s loss.
While the Canes were relying on their offense to outscore their problems, it seems that nearly all of the goals have dried up for Carolina.
“I think everyone’s squeezing a little bit,” Staal said. “There is probably a little too much frustration. We just got to go out and just grind, moving our feet and get to the net and the simple things. I don’t think we are creating as much as we were before.”
When asked if the lack of goal support changes the way he approaches the game, Reimer held true to a calm and collected answer.
“Anytime you start changing your mindset, usually things don’t work out,” Reimer said. “You just stick to what works and you try to make that next save and break the game down into small increments. So whether you’re scoring eight or none, you’re just trying to do your job.”
The Canes have two home games left before the NHL All-Star break kicks in which will see Carolina sit for 10 straight days. The Hurricanes have a lot of work in front of them if they want to make anything before the break.
“We got a valuable point,” Reimer said. “It sucks to not get two, but at least we got something. Right now every point is so important, but you’d like to go into the break with a little bit of room. It’s obviously going to be a dogfight to the end, but you don’t want to be sitting there a week or 10 days off not in a playoff spot.”
Hurricanes center Sebastian Aho celebrates a goal versus the Ducks on Friday, Jan. 17, 2020 at PNC Arena. The Canes lost 2-1 in overtime.
