All teams have their own standards. Speaking of Carolina, the NHL’s fourth-best regular season team over the previous six years, the head coach Rod Brind’Amour has set the bar really high a long time ago. to Stanley Cup heights.
When you look at the team’s performance in recent weeks, alarm bells have started ringing. Four of the five previous matches have ended in defeat.
The latest – somewhat speechless – performance was seen early Thursday morning in Edmonton. The home team seeded the hurricane pack with a score of 6–1. The match could have been dismissed as a one-off game if the team had not lost 2-8 on home ice as the host of Tampa a couple of weeks earlier.
There are troubling aspects of Carolina’s play, and it’s not just the two games mentioned above.
However, the problems were most obvious in them. The level of Carolina’s defense has collapsed this season. Considering the disciplined collective’s high-quality foundation from the last few years, there was nothing left of that on Thursday – and now we’re talking about a team whose defensive equipment is even considered the best in the league.
There was now free access to the best scoring sector. It’s incomprehensible how Carolina sometimes can’t – or doesn’t want to – defend the core of the game at all. Edmonton calmly loaded the puck into the goal from the empty back posts and the best sector.
The tone was the same against Tampa or before against the New York Islanders.
Carolina’s net has swung at a tighter rate than ever before in the Brind’Amour era, 3.3 times per game. For comparison, let’s mention that last year’s figure was 2.6 and the previous season’s figure was 2.4.
Even though there are good entries in the points column, the series ranking is correct and the deep data also praises the team as usual, Carolina’s problems especially in terms of defending their own goal should be taken seriously. If it does not correct its course in the first state, it is giving up the most important cornerstone of its identity. That would be the road to destruction for the team.
Finally, after the Edmonton limbo, the question inevitably arises, has something in Carolina gone or is going to break?
Does the team still listen to their coach? Has grinding the aggressive and demanding pressure game for six years taken its toll? Brind’Amour is also known as a coach who keeps the belts really tight in the direction of the players – the chain rally is exceptionally active even by North American standards.
Is the team getting tired of all the above?
The confused goalkeeper dream melted into the hands
The above-mentioned questions may well be too strong a reaction in a situation where, among other things, Carolina has found itself in the middle of a confusing goalkeeper crisis. The team’s save percentage is the worst in the entire series, and Antti Raantaa could with good reason be called the weakest goaltender in the NHL this season based on the statistics.
In the same breath, it must be stated that the team has defended in front of its opponents without class at times. Egg or chicken?
At the very least, the club management, which assembled a confused three-headed goalkeeper monster, is responsible for the current conflict in the goal area. Last season, the club did poorly for the currently playing Russian To Pyotr Kochetkov four-year contract in the middle of the season, but decided to continue in the summer as well by Frederik Andersen and Antti with Raanna.
The decision was somewhat incomprehensible, considering the injury history of Andersen and Raanna Jari Litmanen level. Andersen is currently injured. Raanta has been in Lasaret twice this season.
The bottom line is that nobody catches the puck right now.
However, the situation does not go down to the goalkeepers alone. Two years ago, Carolina scored five or more goals four times in the regular season. Last year the number was twelve. It’s not even Christmas yet and now the count is already eight. Something has changed.
For one reason or another, Carolina does not defend like in previous years. As usual, Syvädata tells a laudatory story about the control of the gaming device, but when the game moves into its own territory, the deck spreads. It spreads too often in a way Raleigh isn’t used to.
Enthusiasm is missing
There’s a certain sharpness, joy, and enthusiasm missing from Carolina’s play right now. The most worrying thing is that the ski of the team is slipping in such fundamental quality winnable things, which have been the most important core of the team’s identity for Brind’Amour’s years.
On Thursday, the Oilers created 20 scoring opportunities in the first sector, according to Natural Stat Trick, just 5-for-5. Calgary one day later, 17. The last time against Carolina, 20 goals in the first sector were scored in March 2016.
Of course, occasional missteps can be part of the growth story that precedes the journey of every champion. It could also be the case that the legal point of Brind’Amour’s and Carolina’s joint fight has already been seen. Considering the confusion of the game and the lack of some kind of genuine enthusiasm, the latter option cannot be ruled out either. Only the team knows the truth.
Carolina will continue to be a strong bone in the regular season world. It’s winning more games than it’s losing, but where does the whole thing go with spring in mind? At the moment, the tower is wobbly in two very worrying areas: defense and goaltending.
There is no need to feel for the panic button, but there is reason to slowly start to worry.
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