Canes need to crunch some numbers in their favor to beat the Rangers
Crunching the numbers for the Carolina Hurricanes’ postseason series against the New York Rangers can be interesting — and in the Rangers’ case, lopsided.
The Rangers won all four games against the Canes in the regular season. They outscored the Canes 17-9. Goalie Henrik Lundqvist, in winning three of the games, stopped 125 of 132 shots.
Heard enough? There’s more.
One generally overlooked stat in the Rangers sweep was the power play. New York scored a power-play goal in each of the four games and was 5-for-15 overall. The Canes were 2-for-16, going 0-for-5 in one game and 1-for-5 in another.
“Our penalty kill has to be strong. Our power play, as well,” Canes forward Brock McGinn said Tuesday in a Zoom media call. “We’re doing a lot of work on that right now in practice, just getting things back in place. There’s got to be a big focus on our penalty kill, for sure.”
Canes coach Rod Brind’Amour has gotten a lot of mileage the past two seasons out of using forwards Sebastian Aho and Teuvo Teravainen together on a penalty-kill unit. The two have quick hands and sure instincts, and can be offensive threats on the PK — Aho’s shorthanded goal in Game 7 of the Washington Capitals playoff series spurred the Canes’ comeback victory.
But Brind’Amour also relies on players such as McGinn and Jordan Martinook, hustling heart-and-soul types, on the penalty kill. Having both fit and frisky after the four-month break during the coronavirus pandemic should be a plus in the qualifying round series that begins Aug. 1 in Toronto.
“Going into the playoffs last year a lot of guys (were) banged up and in that first series you get pretty nicked up, too,” Martinook said. “Everybody’s healthy and we need to keep it that way for the next week and a half, two weeks, and everyone will be going into the series full go and ready to rock.”
Brind’Amour has gotten in special teams work this week in training camp. One power-play unit has had Aho, Teravainen, Andrei Svechnikov, Justin Williams and defenseman Dougie Hamilton as the quarterback. Another unit had forwards Vincent Trocheck, Nino Niederreiter, Martin Necas and Ryan Dzingel with defenseman Jake Gardiner.
The Canes closed the abbreviated regular season fourth in the NHL on the penalty kill (84%) and eighth on the power play (22.3%) and joined the Boston Bruins and Edmonton Oilers as the only three teams to finish in the top 10 in both categories. The power-play percentage was the highest for Carolina since the franchise relocated in 1997.
But against the Rangers ...
The Canes’ 0-5 power-play game was Dec. 27, when they also allowed two power-play goals — both by Mika Zibanejad — in a 5-3 loss in New York. Carolina had 14 power-play shots among their 42 shots in the game against Lundqvist.
Putting Zibanejad on a power-play unit with players such as Artemi Panarin, Chris Kreider, Ryan Strome and Tony DeAngelo can cause a lot of stress for opposing penalty killers. Zibanejad had 15 power-power play goals, Kreider 9 and Panarin 7, and the unit arguably was the NHL’s best before the March 12 pause.
“They’ve definitely got some threats and we’ve got to stick to our system (and) limit their high-danger scoring chances,” Canes forward Warren Foegele said Wednesday.
The Rangers, seventh in the NHL on the power play (22.9%), don’t need many chances. In the Dec. 27 game they had just four power-play shots and Zibanejad converted two, scoring in front off a nice pass from DeAngelo for the first and then pouncing on a loose puck in the slot for the second.
The Canes were peppering Lundqvist with shots and the Rangers go bang, bang. So many games between the two seem to go that way.
The flip side is that Rangers’ penalty killing was spotty this season — at 77.4% they ranked 23rd in the NHL. Against the Canes: 87.5%. Crunch that number a few times.
“Special teams are always the key,” Brind’Amour said on his Wednesday media call. “They’ve got the high-end players, so that’s going to be crucial. It always is, whether it’s a regular-season game or playoff game.
“Special teams, it always seems to come down to that. Sometimes those stats can be a little deceiving but at the end of the day we have to kill penalties. You know you’re going to have to do that.”
This story was originally published July 22, 2020 at 2:47 PM.
