6 Takeaways: Hurricanes Drop Back-To-Back Games To Panthers

The Carolina Hurricanes had perhaps their worst two games of the season Friday and Saturday losing back-to-back games to the Florida Panthers.

The Canes were outscored 12-3 over 120 minutes of hockey and between weak goaltending, poor special teams and overall tough stretches of play, it was a pretty disappointing effort.

Here are six takeaways from the two-game series:

1. Goaltending Struggles

Spencer Martin, who had put together a fairly impressive week with wins over the Dallas Stars and New York Rangers, saw reality come crashing back down around him Friday and Saturday afternoons with 10 goals against in two games versus Florida.

Now, by no means was Martin thriving in any of those first two games, but he was doing enough to keep Carolina in games especially with key saves late.

But that wasn't the case in the two games against the Panthers.

Florida made him look every bit of a third-string netminder, with Martin surrendering five more goals than expected according to naturalstattrick.com. Martin had some good stretches, namely the second period on Friday and the first period on Saturday, but you can't win off of a 20-minute effort.

With the Hurricanes' current goaltending situation though, they couldn't do much else other than put him back in as they waited for Pyotr Kochetkov to give them the green light as Yaniv Perets is far from ready.

Regardless, Martin went 2-2 over perhaps the toughest stretch of the season.

2. Turnovers and Poor Puck Management

The other biggest struggles for the Hurricanes skaters over the back-to-back was a difficulty in managing the puck.

The Canes were uncharacteristically careless, especially in their own zone, and there were multiple times bad turnovers led directly to goals.

Carolina had four o-zone turnovers and two neutral zone turnovers lead directly to goals across the two games and there were also more than a few occasions of weak in-zone defending as well.

"What they did tonight is what we do to a lot of teams," said Jordan Staal. "That's just forecheck, be physical and then when we do have a chance to break the puck out, tracking back hard, have good gaps and turn pucks over and that's the puck management. Wasn't good enough and we didn't do a good enough job of breaking the puck out and moving the puck forward and playing in their end."

Obviously turnovers are a part of the game and those mistakes are only compounded by weak goaltending, but the frequency with which the team has made those careless mistakes is troubling, especially on the backend.

3. Penalty Problems

The Hurricanes have been one of the least penalized teams in the league this season, but in past six games, the Hurricanes are fifth in the league with 23 penalties taken.

Over the past two games, they were called for 11 penalties, with over half of those being easily avoided infractions.

Penalties kill a team's momentum and you can't rely on the PK to bail you out consistently.

Andrei Svechnikov (26PIM), Sebastian Aho (20), Jesperi Kotkaniemi (20), Shayne Gostisbehere (16) and Sean Walker (16) have been the biggest culprits this season.

"In general, it just takes all the momentum out of it," Brind'Amour said. "I think I mentioned after the second there that you just can't take those penalties. There's no reason to. Unfortunately we just keep doing it. It definitely caught up with us tonight. It is what it is. We have to shelf this one and get ready. The games keep coming."

4. Weak Special Teams

The Carolina Hurricanes entered the weekend series with the seventh ranked power play (27.8%) and sixth ranked penalty kill (84.2%), but neither were strong against Florida.

The Canes had seven power play opportunities and scored just a single goal on them. The team even squandered an extended 4v3/5v3 sequence and gave up a shorthanded goal too.

The penalty kill was especially weak as the Hurricanes surrendered three goals in eight times shorthanded and the last second goal in the second period Saturday broke the Canes' spirit.

"At the end of the second there, that can't happen," Brind'Amour said. "We just kind of fell asleep and that's a back breaker."

"They're a good power play. ... The one right at the end of the period sucked obviously," Staal said. "And then the rest of the game was pretty much over by that point, but the PK still has to take pride in what we do and we came up short tonight."

5. Physical Enough

I saw some comments thrown around that the Canes weren't physical enough/were getting pushed around against the Panthers and I just don't really buy into that.

For one, the team had only nine fewer hits than the Panthers across the two games (39 hits versus 48).

Also, the idea that being physical leads to wins is such an antiquated and incorrect line of thought. Sure, it can help support wins, but it doesn't lead to wins.

Yes, the Panthers get away with a lot of post-whistle antics but retaliating is exactly what they want teams to do. Their power play did enough damage already so giving them free power plays isn't how to win games.

And having a guy in the lineup to "intimidate" opponents is also just not a thing.

Almost all of the biggest tough guys in the league all have negative impacts on their team's overall play too.

6. New Lines, Worse Results

It was clear that Rod Brind'Amour wanted to send a bit of a message to some of his skaters after a tough game on Friday with Andrei Svechnikov most notably moved off of the team's top two lines to start Saturday's match, but those moves did not pay dividends.

The top line especially with William Carrier moved up with Sebastian Aho and Seth Jarvis was terrible, being outchanced 4-15 at even strength.

In fact, only two lines even managed a high-danger chance on Saturday and the moves just made the team look more out of whack overall.