-Gabriel Dorris-

The Recap

The Overview

The Canes came into LA on fire, and had as good of a start as you could hope for. They were up by 2 goals off of a Burnsie wrister and shorthanded breakaway goal from Aho (which gave him the franchise record for most shorthanded goals!) After that, Carolina’s play began to go way downhill, even though they would end up getting the third marker of the game as well, on a really weird KK goal that caught Pheonix Copley off guard and snuck in 5 hole. Although the Canes were leading by 3 goals, they were down 11-6 on shots, and Los Angeles would finally break through on a Drew Doughty goal with roughly 90 seconds left in the first. After this, the Canes would be outplayed for essentially the rest of regulation, but a Brendan Lemiuex wrister (his first as a Cane!) and yet another shorthanded snipe, this time by Teuvo Teravainen, the Canes were up 5-2 over halfway through the second and 5-3 by the end of the period. But the Canes were even worse in the third, and goals by Gavrikov and Kopitar knotted the game at 5 and took it the OT. The Canes dominated the extra 5 minutes of play, but a few misses on golden opportunities paved the way for a shootout. The Canes were down 1-0 and 2-1 at various points in the first three rounds of the shootout, but Necas and Aho both had responses that allowed the game to get all the way to a 9th shootout round, where it was Jordan Martinook who finally ended things and let the Canes eke out a win. Shots were 30-19 for Los Angeles, as neither Freddie or Copley had a great performance in net.

The Standouts

Sebastian Aho was easily the Cane’s best player, with 2 shorthanded points and great play in both zones. He also scored a crucial shootout goal for the Canes. Besides him, almost the entire team had a pretty off night. Teuvo Teravainen had a goal and a couple really nice defensive plays, Brendan Lemiuex had a goal, which is very impressive by his standards, and the Jaccob Slavin–Brent Burns pairing looked solid as always, with Burns scoring a goal, and Slavin joining Aho as the only other +2 of the night, while also putting up an assist.

In order, my three stars would be Jaccob Slavin (***), Teuvo Teravainen (**), and easily Sebastian Aho (*).

The Preview

The Overview

Tonight at 8:30PM EST, the Canes are going to face off against the Ducks in Anaheim. The Ducks are 0-1-0 after a 4-1 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights, a much better team. The Canes are obviously the better team in this matchup, but in hockey in general and especially with Carolina that by no means puts the Ducks out of this game. However, they will need an excellent performance in net by goaltender Lukas Dostal and they’ll need to exploit a team that is likely very tired, coming off of a game that took 9 rounds in the shootout to close. The Ducks, however, are also playing a back to back, which will make this difficult. The Canes need better goaltending, better defense, and better special teams if they want to secure a win this game.

Players to Watch

Teuvo Teravainen already has two goals in two games this season, and it’s worth watching to see if his bounce back season will continue. Dmitry Orlov has had a disappointing first two games in Raleigh, but considering that Brent Burns took months to come into his own here before having a wonderful 61 point, 18 goal season, this is definitely not cause for panic yet. Antti Raanta will be starting in net for the first time this season, and how he’ll play as backup to Freddie this year is very important for the team, especially when the playoffs come. The last thing to watch isn’t a player, but a unit. The powerplay in general has shown almost no signs of improvement from the last few seasons so far, and if doesn’t soon, that will be cause for massive concern. Still, it’s worth giving more time for Orlov, Bunting, and DeAngelo to assimilate to the units.

Prediction

Even though the Canes are far better than the Ducks, they have a tendency to play down to teams far below their level. Along with the fact that this team is going to be incredibly tired, and that Ducks goalies have a thing for incredible games against the Canes, I think this one turns out a lot closer than it should be. Still, the team is going to be motivated after the disaster that last game was, and determined to put on a better show. I think the margin will still be one goal, but at least with no massive choke this time.

3-2 Canes

Record: 2 (correct winner) – 0 (incorrect winner) – 0 (predicted OT/shootout loss and lost in regulation, or vice versa.)

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