On injuries, the power play and Jarvis: Five thoughts from the Canes’ loss to Nashville
The Carolina Hurricanes put in their fourth and final preseason game Saturday and came away with a 4-3 road loss to the Nashville Predators.
Jordan Martinook gave the Canes a 1-0 lead in the first, punching in a rebound, and defenseman Ethan Bear and forward Stefan Noesen scored in the third. But the Predators, who slumbered through most of the first, scored three times in the second.
Roman Josi scored on a power play early in the second, and Yakov Trenin and Filip Forsberg beat goalie Frederik Andersen in transition — Trenin with a backhander on a breakaway. Tanner Jeannot added the fourth Preds goal in the third. for a 4-1 lead before Bear and Noesen scored for Carolina, both with tough-angle shots.
Five takeaways from the game:
▪ A bunch of guys who will be in the Canes’ lineup Thursday for the season opener skated Saturday morning at Wake Competition Center and called it a day. Among those in the “non-game group” were Jordan Staal, Sebastian Aho, Andrei Svechnikov and Jaccob Slavin — 11 skaters in all.
“We’ll definitely get another look at kind of the young kids,” Canes coach Rod Brind’Amour said before the game. “There still are some decisions to be made on some people, I think. That’s why I put them in. Our guys are ready — the other guys who aren’t playing. I didn’t think another game would help them. Probably hurt them.”
▪ The Canes were 0-for-5 on the power play Saturday but it won’t be the same power play Thursday against the New York Islanders. Tony DeAngelo, who played Saturday, will quarterback a unit but most of the other power-play guys were back in Raleigh.
The Canes had 51 seconds of a 5-on-3 advantage in the second period but were outworked by the Preds’ penalty killers and came away empty.
“I thought it was a great game,” Brind’Amour said on a media call. “I thought we played great other than special teams and the power play in particular, which I didn’t expect was going to be great. We weren’t really throwing out our power-play guys.”
▪ Andersen does fill a lot of net. He’s listed at 6-4 and 238 pounds and looks even bigger when he’s in the crease, although the Preds did find some holes in the second period.
As Martinook said Friday: “Every day I say I can’t get over how big Freddie is. His upper body is just massive. I try to get in front of him and I’m just useless.”
Andersen, who faced 17 shots, made his best save of the game in the third period, pushing hard left to right to stop a transition shot by Cody Glass. But the Preds’ Tanner Jeannot soon scored after a Canes turnover for a 4-1 lead.
▪ Brind’Amour wanted to get through the preseason without serious injuries in any of the four games. Mission accomplished. Defenseman Brendan Smith took a puck off the foot in the first period but was able to shake it off.
CapFriendly.com reported Saturday night that center Vincent Trocheck had been placed on injured reserve by the Canes. There was no team announcement after the game. Trocheck went through the non-game group practice Saturday at WCC.
▪ The decision is fast coming on what to do with forward Seth Jarvis — keep him on the NHL roster or send him back to his junior team. The Canes might choose to hedge a bit: keep him on the roster and play him a few games before making the call. Saturday night, Jarvis scored a beauty of a shootout goal to kick off a post-loss, shootout win for the Canes.
Brind’Amour said after the game that some personnel decisions would made Saturday night. On Jarvis, he said, “That’s another discussion we’ll have to have here on the way home. Obviously he did really well. We’ll see.”
This story was originally published October 9, 2021 at 6:47 PM.
