Hurricanes Play More Like a Light Rain in Loss to Bruins
Hurricanes are something to be feared—at least the weather variety. But the Carolina Hurricanes came into Boston after having nullified the Pittsburgh Penguins just two days prior, but played nothing like they had in Pennsylvania. Leading up to the game on Saturday, both teams were experiencing similar streaks in their last ten games with the Canes record standing at 7-2-1 and the Bruins with a 7-1-2 record.
Cam Ward had often frustrated the Boston Bruins as a goaltender, but Saturday night he would last just 5:43 between the pipes before being replaced by Scott Darling. On their first two shots, the Bruins had scored a short-handed goal and an even-strength goal. Of course, after Darling took Ward’s place, the scoring by the Bruins didn’t actuall slow down. Going into the first intermission, the Canes were looking at a 5-1 score, their only goal coming from Jordan Staal on the power play.
Jordan Staal with a nifty redirection to put the @NHLCanes on the board! #Redvolution
Catch the action on FSCR and #FoxSportsGo! #CARvsBOS pic.twitter.com/Jcbm1TM5tZ
— FOX Sports Carolinas (@CanesOnFSCR) January 7, 2018
Eleven minutes into the second period, the Bruins four-time Selke-winning center, Patrice Bergeron, had scored two more goals, for a total of four just from him, and the score was an insurmountable 7-1. That would ultimately be the final score.
“There was not a whole lot of good.” – Jordan Staal
“Well there’s no real momentum when we scored the goal, we didn’t really establish a game. So, there was no real momentum from the goal, but it gets you a chance to get back in it,” head coach Bill Peters summed up after the game. “It was a power play goal. It was good execution by our power play unit. I don’t think we had too many sustaining shifts where we had pressure and we actually won shifts and built a game.”
“We just didn’t compete. We gave them a lot of chances early and they capitalized on them. We hung our goalies out to dry. We didn’t give them a chance; we were leaving guys wide open and that’s pretty much just a lack of effort on our end, but that can’t happen,” defenseman Justin Faulk agreed. “You know, we like to take those big wins and those wins in your division and try to build off of it, but you can’t come in on the road and expect the win to be easy. Boston is a good team and they’ve been playing really well too, and we knew they were going to be tough to play against. Their top line has a lot of skill and they work hard, and we just made it easy for them.”
The Hurricanes have two days before they take on the Tampa Bay Lightning as the Canes continue their third of four games on the road. At the present Tampa sits at the top of the Atlantic Division with 61 points in 41 games. For the Hurricanes, they certainly expected to be in a different position halfway through the regular season. Though they currently sit in the second wild card position, the Pittsburgh Penguins are just one point behind them, while the Philadelphia Flyers and New York Islanders are breathing down their neck as well just two points behind. Carolina has to shake off this loss and refocus on playing hard and competing. Nothing good comes at this stage of the season taking losses such as the one they had in Boston.
