When it rains, it pours.
The Hurricanes suffered a trio of losses this Monday through Thursday, ranging from unlucky to downright embarrassing. The Canes started their longest road trip of the season with a 2-1 loss at Winnipeg on Monday, a 6-1 loss at Edmonton on Tuesday and a 3-2 loss at Calgary on Thursday.
The opener in Winnipeg landed firmly on the unlucky side, with backup Jets netminder saving 41 of Carolina’s 42 shots. The following night’s game at Edmonton nightmarish resided on the exact opposite end of the spectrum as the Canes allowed four first-period goals to the Oilers, a deficit from which they never recovered.
The final game in the trio at Calgary really twisted the knife. Carolina built an early 2-0 lead — its first lead all week — but collapsed in the final period to grab defeat from the jaws of victory.
While an unforgiving road trip at the beginning of the season had its own quirks, Carolina entered this gauntlet with over 20 games under its belt. The excuse of “it’s early in the year” no longer applies, so the string of disappointing results creates at least a little cause for alarm.
Pyotr Kochetkov’s performance has emerged as a popular scapegoat for the Canes’ run of poor form, but the tape tells a different tale. The 24-year-old goalie’s already had a topsy-turvy path for development, fluctuating up and down between the NHL and AHL over the past few seasons, but the Hurricanes’ touch-and-go defense in front of him gives relatively inexperienced goalie little room for error.
Martin Necas echoed the sentiment that the team’s defense needs to be better in front of net.
“We always get a lot of shots, and we don’t give up that many shots,” Necas said after the Winnipeg game. “And when we do, they’re Grade A [chances] and that’s tough on goalies. We’ve just got to figure that out because it happens a lot this season in games like that.”
So if not Kochetkov, then what’s the problem? Rod Brind’Amour made his diagnosis staunchly clear after the loss to Calgary, citing a lack of effort from several players on the team for the Canes’ recent struggles.
“We’ve got a lot of guys that aren’t pulling their weight,” Brind’Amour said. “It’s plain and simple. You can read into it what you want, but we’re not going to win if we don’t have 20 guys going. We have some guys working hard every night, contributing, doing what they do, but there are a lot of others that need to look in the mirror.”
The Canes still have three more matchups to go before returning to Raleigh, so there’s still time to build some momentum by the time they play in front of a home crowd again. The quest to return to the win column starts Saturday at Vancouver. Puck drops at 10 p.m. against the Canucks.