Pregame:
This will be the second meeting this week between the Blue Jackets and Hurricanes, with Carolina taking the first meeting 4-2 in an embarrassing home performance by the Jackets that was highlighted by 2 goals by Nick Foligno.
Carolina’s victory in Columbus gave them their 3rd straight win after going 8 games with 6 regulation losses and 2 overtime/shootout shortcomings. The ‘Canes have beaten the underachieving Coyotes and Kings and dismissed the Blue Jackets with ease, despite a mediocre performance from the always-interesting Cam Ward, whom we can expect to mind the net again for Carolina tonight.
Lineups:
CBJ:
#CBJ lines: 43-38-13 23-19-71 11-41-10 26-39-40. Pairs: 51-58 20-21 28-47
— Aaron Portzline (@Aportzline) November 7, 2014
#CBJ G Curtis McElhinney looks to be the starter tonight vs. #Canes
— Aaron Portzline (@Aportzline) November 7, 2014
#CBJ scratches appear to be Marko Dano and Adam Cracknell.
— Aaron Portzline (@Aportzline) November 7, 2014
With Bobrovsky still on IR, Curtis McElhinney (McBackup, McMason, whatever you want to call him) will be in net again tonight for the CBJ. McElhinney had his best game this season in the loss to the Canes on Tuesday, but he still let in a weak goal to Justin Faulk and a very bad rebound to allow the Zach Boychuk goal.
Aside from all of the other injured players, Jack Johnson will also not play tonight, serving the 1st of his 3 game suspension for a questionable hit on Canes’ leading scorer Jiri Tlusty.
I’ll try to keep this short and sweet: Healthy scratching Marko Dano in favor of Corey Tropp is laughable. Dano has been given remarkably tough assignments for a rookie and has still stayed above water while playing on a line with Jared Boll and Michael Chaput.
Tropp, given easier assignments with the same linemates, has stunk the place up possession wise and has taken several very stupid penalties.
CAR:
#Canes forward lines:
Tlusty-E. Staal-Semin
Gerbe-Nash-Lindholm
Skinner-McClement-Dwyer
Terry-Rask-Boychuk— Michael Smith (@MichaelSmithNC) November 7, 2014
#Canes head coach Bill Peters expects Jiri Tlusty to play tonight, assuming he responds well today.
— Michael Smith (@MichaelSmithNC) November 7, 2014
Defensive Pairings:
Sekera-Faulk
Liles-Harrison
Hainsey-Bellemore
Cam Ward will get the start again tonight despite a mediocre performance in the win against the Jackets on Tuesday. He seems to have beaten out Khudobin for the starting job for now, despite Khudobin having a slightly not-as-terrible save%. But, Cam Ward has been in net for all of the Canes’ wins on this streak, so don’t fix what’s kind of doing it’s job, right?
First Period
The first started out slowly for both teams. Midway through there were only 6 shots on net, split evenly amongst the two teams.
The Blue Jackets picked up the pace after a goal was disallowed for Carolina on the grounds of goalie interference by Semin. At the end of the period, the CBJ had a wide lead in terms of shots but only a slight edge in corsi for.
Second Period
After flatlining for about 7 minutes with 0 shot attempts, the Hurricanes converted a turnover in the defensive end into a goal with Skinner beating McElhinney in the low slot. Can’t entirely blame McBackup when the D isn’t taking care of the pucks in their own zone.
The goal puts a spring in Carolina’s step and they end up taking over possession wise. The constant penalties make that task a bit easier.
Boone Jenner and Scott Hartnell worked wonders this period, both of them getting more and more comfortable playing alongside each other. The two teamed up for 2 goals in the second period, Hartnell shoveling it home both times after Boone did some dirty work.
Another goal was “disallowed” for Carolina, even though it never crossed the goal line.
Score effects might already might be peeping their head in after the Blue Jackets scored their second goal. Carolina turned up the intensity and the CBJ flatlined in the final two minutes of the period.
CBJ lead on the scoreboard 2-1, Carolina leads in CorsiFor with a total of 43 to 37. CBJ getting destroyed on 5v5 possession with 35 attempts for Carolina and only 22 for CBJ.
Third Period
The third period was bad and unsettling. Let in the game tying goal, continued to “commit” penalties, got killed in possession. Things were bad.
Game ended up going to OT, CBJ picked up first point in 6 games, which was good I guess?
Overtime
Overtime was also bad. Also unsettling. CBJ allowed to breakaway passes within seconds of each other, then “took” a penalty, then proceeded to pull of the worst line change in history. Canes got a 2 on 1 opportunity out of it and Lindholm sniped it past McElhinney. Thus extending the losing streak to 7 games.
Gotta wonder how hot Richards’ pants are during all of this with him sitting on the hot seat. Sure, you can’t expect to be winning every game with this much of your roster on injured reserve, but the Jackets have been getting outplayed and outplayed by a fair margin. Can we attribute it to lack of talent on the ice? Or is it a problem with the system?
Just to reiterate how bad the Jackets have been (even with Jenner and Calvert), they were out-attempted by a total of 34 shots in the past two games against Carolina. Yes, Carolina. The Hurricanes attempted 76 shots against Columbus tonight, the most to come against the Jackets since Game 5 against Pittsburgh. Yes, tonight the Jackets made a bottom 5 team in the league look like they had the offense of the Pittsburgh Penguins of last year, the team with Crosby, Malkin, Kunitz, Neal, Niskanen.
There are lots of problems going on with the Jackets at this point and I’m not convinced that all of them are stemming from IR. And no, it’s not because they don’t have a captain.
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