Rest or rust? For the Carolina Hurricanes, coming off their NHL-mandated five-day bye week, it was certainly the latter in a 2-1 overtime loss to the NHL’s worst team, the Colorado Avalanche, at PNC Arena Friday night.
Both goaltenders played well in this game; Avalanche (16-38-2) goalie Calvin Pickard stopped 28 of 29 shots. Canes (24-22-8) starter Cam Ward was the busier of the two, stopping 35 of 37 Avs shots. Ward was the main reason for the Canes securing a point in the standings, as the team played very poorly on both sides of the puck coming off the long layoff.
“We’ll take the point,” head coach Bill Peters said. “There’s not many nights you’re going to play like that and get a point.”
In overtime, Canes forward Victor Rask turned the puck over in the offensive zone, and Avalanche forwards Matt Duchene and Mikko Rantanen came in on a two-on-one rush; Duchene made a perfect pass that Rantanen buried for the win.
The Canes seemed to take some time to adjust from the bye week, looking sloppy in the opening frame. The Avalanche took advantage with a little under six minutes left in the first; defenseman Tyson Barrie came down the slot wide open and buried a shot for a 1-0 lead.
“It wasn’t our best first period,” forward Jordan Staal said. “I thought we did a better job as the game continued; we started creating and playing the way we want to play. The puck was kind of bouncing for us; we may have been a little slower than we’d have liked. We could have buried a few other chances that we created.”
The Canes struck back with 48.5 seconds to play in the opening frame, as leading scorer Jeff Skinner blasted a shot from the side boards that deflected off Avs defenseman Nikita Zadorov and behind Pickard to tie the game at one.
“It felt good playing with Turbo [Teuvo Teravainen] and Stemper [Lee Stempniak],” Skinner said. “They did a good job making plays, but I think we could still hang on to pucks a little bit more in the offensive end and create zome more zone time.”
The Avalanche nearly regained the lead early in the second, but Ward stretched out to make a tremendous stop on Colorado forward Gabriel Landeskog off a backdoor play to keep the game tied at one.
Both teams had some good chances in the second period, but Ward and Pickard held up to send the game to the third deadlocked at one. The Canes had another empty power play in the second, as the man advantage struggled once again in this game; Carolina finished 0 for 2 with the power play.
“We’re definitely going to need it [the power play],” Skinner said. “I don’t know, it’s something we’ve got to keep working at. Obviously for the last little while, it’s been struggling. Hopefully we can turn that around. We’ll find ways to keep working at it.”
The crowd erupted as Skinner appeared to put the Canes up a goal halfway through the third, but forward Lee Stempniak had already been whistled for slashing, wiping out the goal. Right off the draw on the Avs power play, Staal and forward Joakim Nordstrom got a golden opportunity on a shorthanded rush, but the puck somehow stayed out and the game stayed knotted at one.
“It was rough,” Peters said of the lack of offense in the game. “Lots of pucks at the feet, lots of turnovers.”
The Avs nearly got an odd-man rush to end it late in regulation, but defenseman Justin Faulk took a very much necessary tripping penalty with a few seconds left, giving Colorado a full man advantage to start overtime, which the Canes killed off before Rantanen’s winner.
“I think the effort was there, but the execution was lacking,” Peters said. “You really had to work hard to overcome a lack of execution.”
The first post-bye week game has been a struggle for the league as a whole, as NHL teams are now 3-9-2 coming off the bye. This was not the result the Canes wanted coming off the break, a loss at home to the worst team in the NHL with every point being precious. While the Canes gained a charity point, they are still seven points back of an Eastern Conference Wild Card spot, adding even more importance to the remaining four games on this home stand.
The Canes will be back in action Sunday night with a pivotal game against the Toronto Maple Leafs, the team currently in possession of that coveted playoff position.
