Thoughts From My Couch: Carolina Hurricanes v. Tampa Bay Lightning, Round 2, Game 5

Every game against the Lightning from here on out is going to be an elimination game. Unfortunately for the Canes, they're on the wrong end of this situation. Game 4 saw a ten-goal explosion between the two teams, something we hadn't seen much of in the first three games. The Lightning scored more times, winning 6-4, and taking a commanding 3-1 series in the lead. Tomorrow is no longer guaranteed for the Canes. They must win to fight another day. Tonight is the first step in the right direction. There is some game-time intrigued to this one for the Canes as both Nino Niederreiter, Vincent Trocheck, and Warren Foegele are all considered coin-flips on whether they'll play tonight. My hope is to see at least two of the three, most likely Nino and Trocheck, though any returns will be more than welcomed. The other question is which goalie will start. Rod Brind'Amour's comments this morning had people wondering who it is going to be. If I'm a betting man, which I'm not, I'd guess Alex Nedeljkovic will be back in net tonight after Petr Mrazek struggled in Game 4, but I could be completely off base with that one. I'm not as anxious about this as others might be, which I'm having a hard time deciding whether that's a good thing or not. Obviously, I hope they win tonight and rattle off three straight to advance, but I'm not looking past tonight's game. Saturday's loss likely isn't sitting well with the team and with the series shifting back to Carolina for tonight, I have no doubt they want to put on a show in front of the home crowd in case it's the last time they lace up in Raleigh this season.

1st Period: Lightning 0, Hurricanes 0

We're scoreless after one for the fourth time in five games. Ned got the start and he looked really good in the opening period. Trocheck and Niederreiter are both in and they played well in the first, minus a slash from Nino a little over a minute in. Both teams actually got penalties in the first six minutes and both were killed off, with Dougie Hamilton stopping a 2-on-1 while the Canes were a man up. Nikita Kucherov just missed the net off a face-off and Teuvo Teravainen tried to go between his legs, but it was harmless and stopped easily by Vasilevskiy. The Canes were great on the forecheck throughout the entire period, especially the Staal line. There was a 4-on-4 during the period. Vincent Trocheck threw a massive hip check on Anthony Cirelli during the sequence. Tampa Bay held the zone for a while after the two minutes ended, but the Canes never broke and made it to a TV timeout. Right after the commercials ended, Andrei Svechnikov was stopped on a breakaway and after that, the period was relatively uneventful. Neither team wanted to allow the first goal and it showed in the last few minutes. I thought the Canes played well for the most part, though each team had their periods of sustained pressure in the offensive zone. Ned looked good after two games on the bench and Vasilevskiy looked like he'd moved past the second period from Saturday. We'll be back 4-on-4 to open the second period after Aho and Stamkos were given matching roughing penalties to end the period. It's feeling like one of those games where the first team to score is going to win, which means the Canes need to score first badly.

2nd Period: Lightning 1, Hurricanes 0

We didn't see a repeat of Saturday's wild second period, but Tampa Bay leads by one after two periods. Brayden Point scores on the power play for the Lightning after what I can only describe as a soft call that incidentally comes mere seconds after Pat Maroon complains to the referees. Jani Hakanpaa gets called for interference and the Lightning score late in the advantage to take the lead. It was an admittedly slick goal from Point, but the Lightning shouldn't have been a man-up in the first place, in my opinion. It should be mentioned that during that power play for Tampa Bay, Andrei Vasilevskiy made a spectacular save on Vincent Trocheck on a 2-on-1 with Jordan Staal. From that point on, outside of a few flurries from the Lightning, the Canes played really well. They controlled the puck for most of the period. If not for a few blocks on Dougie Hamilton by Mikhail Sergachev, this game could certainly be tied. The Canes are down yet again, but this time it's in an elimination game. This time it matters more than any other time during this series. The Canes are close, I can feel it. They are still in this game.

3rd Period: Lightning 2, Hurricanes 0

There's a reason Andrei Vasilevskiy is going to win the Vezina and has been nominated for four consecutive seasons. He's as good as advertised and he was fantastic in this period. The Canes tried as hard as they could, they just couldn't beat him and it ultimately is what ended their season tonight. Tampa Bay controlled the play in the period and got better chances than the Canes did. Dougie Hamilton made another huge defensive play early in the period to prevent a goal and Ned stopped huge changes from Point, Kucherov, Ross Colton, and Yanni Gourde at various points early in the period. The dagger in this game was a little bit more than halfway into the period when a Steven Lorentz turnover turned into a Ross Colton goal to make it 2-0 with less than half a period left. The only other real noteworthy thing that happened was a really bad hit from Ondrej Palat to the head of Brett Pesce that would get called a penalty and knock Pesce out for the last seven minutes of the game. They tried as hard as they could, but the Canes didn't score and the game ended with the Lightning advancing. 

Canes' Three Stars of the Game

Third Star- Andrei Svechkikov- 17:03 TOI, 2 SOG

After what could only be described as a bad Game 4, I thought Svech was much better in this one. It's hard to evaluate players when no one scores and he might not have been the best forward on the ice for the Canes, but it was a much better showing for him tonight. He took the puck to the net several times, he just couldn't solve the goalie.

Second Star- Dougie Hamilton- 26:55 TOI, 5 SOG

It is no secret everyone has huge expectations for Dougie and in what might've been his last game as a Cane, he played really well. He's often criticized for his defensive play, but he thwarted a few odd-man rushes at pivotal moments in the game. He was also a major part of the game on offense and was tied for the team lead in shots. I personally don't want to see him leave, but this was a good individual effort if he does.

First Star- Alex Nedeljkovic- 23/25 SV, .920 SV%, 2 GA

After sitting for two games, there was hardly any visible rust tonight for Ned. The PP goal from Point was hardly on him as it was just a great pass and move. I felt he was largely left out to dry and that might just be because the team in front of him didn't score, but it's hard to win when you don't score. It makes every mistake more important and in Ned's case, he made two more mistakes than Vasilevskiy. 

Final Thoughts

The series ending in five games is going to give the impression the Lightning blew out the Canes and the series was never close. The reality is three games were one-goal games and the last two were tight two-goal games. Ned's record is going to be 0-3, but the team scored a combined two goals in his three starts while allowing just six. But that's all in the rearview mirror and now it's time to sit back, watch the rest of the playoffs, and prepare for a run next season. There'll be a lot of tough decisions to make in the front office. There are going to be a lot of reasons why the Canes lost this series and they're likely all accurate. People will talk about the salary cap or other things but for me, this series was won on special teams and in the net by the Lightning. The Canes had a great PK all regular season. All it took was the return of a few players for Tampa Bay to ignite their team. The Lightning finished five points behind the Canes in the regular season, but a healthy Nikita Kucherov would've likely made Tampa Bay the regular season division champs. We can make excuses all we want, but the season is over now and that's just how it is.