Canes Goalied In Utah

Sometimes, things just don't go your way.

And on Wednesday night in Utah, things really didn't go the Carolina Hurricanes' way.

Despite a game where the Canes had 50 shots on goal and 99 shot attempts, they just couldn't get the better of goaltender Karel Vejmelka who stopped a career-high 49-saves for his first win of the season.

According to NaturalStatTrick.com, Vejmelka stopped all 17 high-danger shots he faced and saved 5.01 goals above expected on the night.

It was an outstanding performance by the Czech netminder and you really can't do anything but tip your cap to him and move on.

"I mean, you have to give him credit," said Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour on the Utah netminder. "He made some big saves. Their goalie was obviously the story."

Even beyond Vejmelka though, who did not give up a lot of rebounds, Utah did a really good job of clogging up the middle of the ice too.

The Hockey Club was credited with 26 blocked shots and they prevented the Canes from consistently getting to the areas they really like to score from.

But the loss goes a bit beyond getting goalied.

For one, the Canes had a tough stretch to start the third period where they were not at their best defensively.

Utah scored three goals in a span of two minutes and 19 seconds, mostly from plays off the rush.

It was a little bit of bad luck — i.e. Andrei Svechnikov getting his skate blade knocked off by an attempted pass up ice which created a turnover with numbers the other way or twice pucks bouncing weirdly off the end boards — but there was also a lot of swinging at pucks in tight and just overall not really handling things well within their own zone.

"They got a couple quick ones in three or so minutes," Brind'Amour said. "I don't even think it was bad, we just let them get some chances and they all went in. That's just the way it went. We definitely had enough scoring opportunities, but we kind of had that little lull there for a couple of minutes and that cost us."

While it's easy to be frustrated with the seemingly random lull, there's also something to be said about playing road games at altitude too (Salt Lake City has the second highest elevation in the league at 4,265 feet).

Add that onto being on the third leg of a cross-country road trip and having played six straight games every other day and the fatigue builds up and perhaps that's part of what we saw in that third period.

Another area where things really came apart was the power play, which essentially played the entire second half of the third period.

After Michael Carcone jumped Jack Drury during play, the Utah forward was assessed a two-minute instigator, a five-minute fighting major and a 10-minute misconduct, handing Carolina seven straight minutes of power play time.

The Canes also got 34 seconds of a 5-on-3 at the end of those seven minutes after Maveric Lamoureux was called for a hold and then just over 30 seconds after that penalty was killed, Nick Bjugstad went to the box for a delay of game penalty.

But in 10:26 of power play time in the third period alone, the Canes managed 16 shots, over two expected goals and a whopping 0 real goals.
"We kind of butchered that if we're being honest," Brind'Amour said. "5-on-3, you can't hold onto the puck like that. I don't know. We just did some uncharacteristic things there, but at that point it was 4-1 so that wasn't the game. The game was that little segment where we let them get some opportunities and like we said, they cashed them in."

It also didn't bode well that for good stretches of that game, the Hurricanes' best line at 5v5 was their fourth line.

For one, the Canes really need Sebastian Aho and Andrei Svechnikov to get going. Each are essentially point-per-game players, which is all good and fine, but Carolina needs those two to be more than good and fine.

They have to be stars and they have to be impactful night in and night out.

They've had flashes this season, but there really hasn't been a game where they've taken over, especially true for Sebastian Aho who normally is a game-breaker, having led the team in scoring in all but two of his seasons in Raleigh.

Luckily for the Hurricanes, they've been able to win a lot of games by committee so far and also the fact that Martin Necas has been going crazy as a blossoming star, but you don't want the rest of your top talents coasting for too long.

Extra Notes

• Pyotr Kochetkov was pulled after the third goal against, but it seemed to be more injury related than performance. After Utah's second goal, defenseman Sean Walker crashed into his goaltender and Kochetkov looked to have taken a skate to his lower-midbody. Hopefully it was a really uncomfortable moment for the Russian netminder, but Brind'Amour did not have an update on him after the game.

• Martin Necas scored the lone Canes goal, a power-play one-timer in the second period, to extend his career long point streak to 11 games.

• William Carrier was the only Hurricane without a shot on goal. Andrei Svechnikov and Jackson Blake led the way with seven shots each.