Blackhawks can't hang with Hurricanes, despite a 'lighter lineup'

Even though the Carolina Hurricanes are still battling it out for the top seed in the Eastern Conference, head coach Rod Brind’Amour used tonight’s game to rest many of his top players. Yesterday, Carolina recalled forwards Skyler Brind’Amour, Bradly Nadeau, and Josiah Slavin, as well as defenseman Charles Alexis Legault from the Chicago Wolves. All of them were in the lineup against the Blackhawks as Jalen Chatfield, Jaccob Slavin, Jordan Staal, Jordan Martinook, Seth Jarvis, Sebastian Aho, and Andrei Svechnikov were all held out with “undisclosed injuries.”

The Hurricanes could have called up half their ECHL squad, and it wouldn’t have made much of a difference as the Hurricanes rolled to a 7-2 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks. They scored 19 seconds into the game and never looked back. It was one of those nights where every mistake ended up behind Spencer Knight. That’s what good teams do: make you pay when you make the wrong play.

“We’ve done a pretty good job all year of competing pretty hard,” head coach Jeff Blashill said. “I don’t want to overreact to a bad night. It’s frustrating, for sure. Our fans deserve better, for sure. I recognize all of that. But there are [bad] nights that happen, and this was one of them.”

JV Squad Gets it Done

As I wrote this morning, Blashill sees a lot of value in playing a team like the Hurricanes. They are a well-oiled machine, with everyone pulling in the same direction. Rod Brind’Amour gets his team to play exactly how Blashill wants his young squad to play consistently. He has been preaching that defense leads to offense since his arrival in Chicago, and the Hurricanes exemplify that philosophy.

It’s easy to see why Carolina sits atop the Eastern Conference. They are a disciplined team that plays within their structure, rarely ever straying from the game plan. They are second in the league in shots per game, while allowing the fewest shots per game in the NHL. Those two stats play hand-in-hand. Just look at the Blackhawks, who have the fewest shots per game in the NHL, while allowing the second-most. You can’t play offense if you never have the puck.

The fact that the Hurricanes were without many of their most effective players and still played within their system shows how well-coached they are. Everyone knew exactly where to be on the ice. The forecheck was suffocating the Blackhawks early in the game. The Blackhawks eventually adjusted, countering it with their speed and stretch passes from the defensemen.

On the other side of the rink, the Hurricanes made life difficult for the Blackhawks. Zone entries were not easy, as they stacked the blue line and swarmed the puck. As shown below, Bedard was visibly frustrated after being hounded numerous times at the blue line.

This is a game that Blashill should show his team all offseason, not to watch what they did wrong, but what the Hurricanes did right. They are what the Blackhawks are striving to be. Defense leads to offense. Predictability allows you to play fast. Those are just sayings for Blashill right now, but that is what Carolina does every shift of every game.

Blue Line Woes

This was not a banner night for Blackhawks defensemen. The first three Hurricanes goals were all products of poor individual plays by blueliners. On Sean Walker’s goal in the opening seconds of the game, Wyatt Kaiser needed to get his body between the shooter and his goaltender. Now, he wasn’t done any favors by Nick Lardis and Connor Bedard cheating out of the zone before getting possession.

On Logan Stankoven’s first goal, Sam Rinzel’s soft play along the boards cost him dearly. He needed to do a better job of using his body to protect the puck along the boards. He made it too easy for Stankoven to swoop in and steal the puck.

Stankoven’s second goal stemmed from a brutal, unforced turnover by Alex Vlasic. Louie Crevier made an ill-advised move back around his net to avoid pressure. For some reason, Vlasic stopped moving his feet and missed Crevier’s pass. Poor decision-making compounded by even worse execution.

"They're really aggressive,” Crevier said. “It's a hard system to play against. But we didn't give ourselves a chance, really."

Nuggets & Tidbits

• Anton Frondell was the lone bright spot of the evening, scoring both Blackhawks goals. Both plays showed his smarts. On the first goal, he followed Crevier to the net and was rewarded with a loose puck. His second goal came when he got to the front of the net and had his stick on the ice. At 18, he already knows that most goals are not going to be highlight reel plays by changing the angle of a shot and picking a corner. Rather, you have to get to the front of the net and be strong on your stick. In addition to his two goals, he had five shots on goal, seven shot attempts, two blocked shots, and was not on the ice for any of the seven goals against.

• Lardis was probably talking to himself a few times on the bench tonight. He had two great scoring chances in the opening period, where he was “eyeball-to-eyeball” with the goaltender, as Blashill likes to say. Early in the opening frame, Bedard drew all the attention along the boards, and he found a wide-open Lardis for a one-on-one chance from the slot, but Freddie Andersen stopped him. Late in the period, he had a breakaway, but Andersen got the best of him on both the initial shot and the chance off the rebound.

• For as good as the five-forward power-play unit looked on the three-game road trip out west, it was ineffective tonight. The Hurricanes crowded the blue line, making it nearly impossible to enter the zone. In 6:56 of power-play time, they produced only five shot attempts and two shot attempts.

• While the team in front of him did him no favors, Spencer Knight had arguably his worst game of the season. He seemed slow to react, especially with his glove hand. He had an expected goals against of 2.38 but allowed seven, all at 5-on-5. He only faced five high-danger shots and gave up goals on three of them.