It would take less time to list what the Carolina Hurricanes did right than what they did wrong against the Minnesota Wild. A 4-0 shutout loss to Minnesota looks prettier than how the team actually played.
“We’re so flat, we’ve got no chance the way we’re going right now — zero,” said head coach Rod Brind’Amour during a bench interview in the second period. “Never got better,” he added during the post-game press conference.
After stringing a series of good performances together, the Hurricanes followed it up with one of their worst of the season.
“It’s just our mindset,” said center Jordan Staal. “We were kind of moseying on into the game and it’s the NHL. You can’t just show up and see what happens. And when you do, it looks like that. The execution, the battle level, the 50/50s, the special teams, just the mindset. Everything was just wrong and that’s what it looks like. I feel bad for our fans tonight.”
The Canes (23-14-2) recorded just 21 shots on goal, failing to get any in the back of the net. They sat back and watched while the Minnesota Wild (25-11-4) skated circles around them.
The Wild made it its mission to beat the Canes to every puck, and that’s exactly what it did. The Canes’ low sense of urgency allowed the Wild to get four pucks past goaltender Pyotr Kochetkov.
Coming off a high-intensity game against the Panthers, the Canes were not in the right mindset to play against one of the top teams in the Central division, many waiting on others to make a game-changing play.
“We never started anything, anything good,” Staal said. “We were kind of hoping that something good was going to happen and hoping maybe someone else was going to do it. We lost the special teams battle which always hurts, and our five-on-five play was pretty ugly. We got a game tomorrow and learn [to] bring some more emotion and just dragging each other into a fight. There really wasn’t a push at all.”
Going back to his Ranger days, right winger Mats Zuccarello feasted when he played the Canes and didn’t stop tonight, scoring the game’s opening goal. He let off a one-timer into the back of the net after his team outhustled the Hurricanes defenders and set the play up perfectly. This goal was the only one required to win and injected the Wild with momentum.
A slow end to the first period snowballed into the second as the Canes still couldn’t manage to fend off their opponent, receiving back-to-back penalties. The second goal of the night was a tip-in on the power play for the Wild following a tripping call to Kochetkov.
Shortly after the second goal, the Hurricanes fought to get the puck to the net and got it in with a deflection off the Wild defenders, getting themselves on the board until Wild head coach John Hynes successfully challenged the goal, killing all momentum the Canes thought they found.
Brind’Amour responded with a successful challenge of his own when a shot from the point made it through a scramble of people and past Kochetkov but was corrected to goaltender interference.
The challenge only temporarily erased the 3-0 deficit before left wing Matt Boldy was fed the puck through the gaps of the Canes defenders and capitalized on a one-on-one situation with Kochetkov halfway through the third.
The Wild finished it off with a late empty-netter from Zuccarello, making the final score 4-0.
“Consistency has been the big issue with our group right now,” Brind’Amour said. “[We’ll] play really well and then not so good. Finding that consistency is what we got to get to.”
It’s almost halfway through the season and the Canes look more disconnected than ever. From game to game you don’t know what you’re getting from this group and for Brind’Amour and the rest of the coaching staff, that’s the scary part.
On the positive side, Carolina has a chance to put this performance behind them when it takes on the Penguins Sunday at 6 p.m.
