Down 2-0 to Lightning, Canes’ anemic offense hasn’t earned right to return to PNC Arena
Just as Vincent Trocheck went limping off on one skate after an accidental collision with teammate Warren Foegele, the Carolina Hurricanes are limping down to Florida reeling from self-inflicted damage, unsure if they’ll even have the chance to return.
The Tampa Bay Lightning have been good in the first two games of this series, goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy most of all, but neither unbeatable nor untouchable. The Hurricanes have only themselves to blame for falling behind 2-0 in this series after Tuesday’s 2-1 loss.
They at least gave themselves a chance in the final 90 seconds with a late Andrei Svechnikov goal with Alex Nedeljkovic on the bench, but they left it too late and had too little to offer. Perhaps that will spark an offense that hasn’t yet earned the right to return to PNC Arena.
Finish or be finished. It’s come to that.
This isn’t good enough. Top to bottom. Not good enough to beat Vasilevskiy. Not good enough to beat another really good team. Not good enough by the standard the Hurricanes set for themselves during the regular season, and again during the first round of the playoffs.
Asked point-blank if the Hurricanes have made things difficult enough on Vasilevskiy, Svechnikov didn’t shy away from the truth.
“Not really,” Svechnikov said. “You know we’re going to do that next game. Obviously, we didn’t do that much these two games, but we’re going to do that for sure.”
They’re letting themselves down, piling up shots from the perimeter, too often taking the easy way out. And the really good chances they have generated, they can’t finish. Martin Necas had the game-changing play on his stick, on the receiving end of a Sebastian Aho pass on a short-handed two-on-one. Necas got Vasilevskiy down and out, but steered his backhand wide of the post.
To their credit, they’re not hiding from it.
“We’re going to have to go in their building and play the same kind of game they played here, not giving us much and playing a good road game,” Hurricanes captain Jordan Staal said. “We’ve got to find a way to get a win. As forwards, we’ve got to do a better job of getting to the net. We’ve got to score more than one goal, plain and simple.”
At their best, the Hurricanes are a pain in the butt, grinding down the opposition, one step ahead. This isn’t it. The Hurricanes are making things hard on themselves and easy on Vasilevskiy, whose mitt will have a perfectly conditioned palm after getting a workout Tuesday.
Their offense was anemic enough before losing Nino Niederreiter and now perhaps Trocheck, who came back out for one shift to start the third before departing again. The big guns continue to misfire. Teuvo Teravainen missed the net twice at point-blank range. They’ve scored twice in two games against the Lightning, neither coming with the teams at even strength.
In this long postseason of one-goal games, the Hurricanes have left themselves no margin for error.
Until Tuesday, their losses in these playoffs had been defined by momentary mistakes, magnified by the Hurricanes’ inability to convert their chances in both series. Jake Bean playing the puck instead of the man in Game 3 of the Nashville series. Losing track of Luke Kunin off the bench in Game 4. Alex Nedeljkovic failing to seal his post on Barclay Goodrow’s winner Sunday.
This one was defined not by one moment like those but by a strangely detached performance, long on shots from the perimeter, short on shots from dangerous areas, and especially short on dangerous shots that actually hit the net. The Lightning scored twice on only 15 shots, one a speculative long-distance shot through traffic, the other a partial breakaway after Brady Skjei misplayed the puck, each representing both kinds of finishing -- lucky and clinical -- missing from the Hurricanes’ game.
It’s fine for a coach to argue, as Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour argued afterward, with some justification, that there were a lot of positives to the performance. But it’s another to take a step back and realize that all of that effort isn’t actually getting you anywhere when it matters.
“The narrative’s going to be you lost two at home, but that’s not the picture I’m painting here,” Brind’Amour said. “I thought we played damn good, worked extremely hard, the breaks went their way. They worked for them. They’re a good team. But I’m proud of the group and how hard they’re working and sticking to what we do, and I felt like we’re right there.”
The Hurricanes have played from behind in all but one game this postseason, so playing from behind in a series shouldn’t be an unfamiliar feeling. Fifteen years ago, the Hurricanes famously lost the first two games of the first round at home, rallied in Montreal, won the next four against the Canadiens and never looked back. But those Canadiens were ripe to fall; the Lightning will not collapse so easily.
Tampa Bay has been good in these two games, not great. Offense hasn’t come easy for the Lightning, either. Both games were sitting there, waiting for someone to take control. The Hurricanes certainly had their chances Sunday. Tuesday, they let the Lightning win almost by default.
This isn’t about running into a hot goaltender. Vasilevskiy is really good; that’s no secret. But the Hurricanes haven’t done enough to force him to prove it. They’re a better team than this, more skilled, more determined. They showed that during the regular season. They haven’t proven that so far in this series.
This story was originally published June 1, 2021 at 11:11 PM with the headline "Down 2-0 to Lightning, Canes’ anemic offense hasn’t earned right to return to PNC Arena."
