Game 20 By the Numbers: Hurricanes at Blues
Well...that was quite a way to get knocked back down to Earth. After a strong home stand, the Hurricanes traveled to St. Louis and took a beating from one of the best teams in the NHL. The final score may not indicate it, but the Canes were dominated for most of last night's game and were one good penalty kill away from being blown out. It's not terribly surprising either because the deck was stacked against them in many ways. They were traveling on the second night of a back-to-back against two top Western Conference teams, were playing their third string goalie for the 10th game in a row and are dealing with a banged up roster at the moment. The Canes have also been a mediocre team at even strength and do not match up well with the Blues, especially on the road, so I was expecting them to get outplayed and that's basically what happened.
How bad were they outplayed, though? Find out after the jump.
Fenwick Timeline from Extra Skater
The Blues controlled most of the play at even strength and they completely shut down the Hurricanes in the third period, which is pretty impressive considering the score was tied for a good chunk of that frame. This was similar to Friday night's game against Anaheim, only the Hurricanes transitional game was non-existant and the Blues had a much easier time getting through Carolina's defense to create chances. Carolina has been on the wrong end of the territorial battle even in the games they have won, but they were able to make up for it by playing a solid game in their own end and keeping most of the opposing shots to the outside. This didn't happen against St. Louis and it's mostly because the Hurricanes were defending 60-70% of the time and you are going to give up some chances when that's the case.
Scoring Chances
Period | Total | 5v5 | PP | 5v3 | SH | 3v5 | 4v4 | EN | ||||||||
1 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
2 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
3 | 2 | 8 | 0 | 6 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Totals | 10 | 17 | 5 | 14 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
It's kind of amazing that the Hurricanes were able to keep the score close when you look at how badly St. Louis outplayed them. Aside from that one penalty kill in the second period where they scored twice, Carolina hardly had any legit scoring chances and they had nothing going for them at even strength. The Blues are going to make a lot of teams look bad, but only creating five even strength chances in one game is pretty abysmal no matter who you play. There were some positives, though, as Carolina played a solid second period and got themselves back into the game with a couple of shorthanded goals. Any momentum that was gained from that went away in the third period, though since the Blues went into lockdown mode and took control of the game. Very frustrating to watch from Carolina's perspective.
Hurricanes Individual Scoring Chances
Player | Goals | Shots | Chances | Attempts |
Eric Staal | 1 | 3 | 3 | 6 |
Nathan Gerbe | 1 | 4 | 2 | 7 |
Tim Gleason | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Jordan Staal | 0 | 3 | 1 | 3 |
Riley Nash | 0 | 2 | 1 | 2 |
Justin Faulk | 0 | 2 | 1 | 2 |
Alexander Semin | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
Andrej Sekera | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Mike Komisarek | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Tuomo Ruutu | 0 | 1 | 0 | 4 |
Jiri Tlusty | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
Drayson Bowman | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
Manny Malhotra | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Patrick Dwyer | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Jay Harrison | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
Chris Terry | 0 | 1 | 0 | 5 |
Ron Hainsey | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
Brett Bellemore | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
Hurricanes On-Ice Scoring Chances
# | Player | 5v5 | PP | SH | ||||||
4 | Andrej Sekera | 15:44 | 3 | 6 | 3:55 | 2 | 0 | 4:20 | 0 | 3 |
5 | Mike Komisarek | 3:21 | 0 | 1 | 0:07 | 0 | 0 | 0:00 | 0 | 0 |
6 | Tim Gleason | 12:46 | 1 | 5 | 0:07 | 0 | 0 | 2:24 | 0 | 1 |
11 | Jordan Staal | 12:09 | 2 | 4 | 3:42 | 2 | 0 | 2:26 | 0 | 0 |
12 | Eric Staal | 17:23 | 2 | 2 | 4:19 | 2 | 0 | 2:18 | 1 | 1 |
14 | Nathan Gerbe | 11:42 | 2 | 5 | 4:04 | 2 | 0 | 1:20 | 1 | 1 |
15 | Tuomo Ruutu | 12:02 | 2 | 5 | 4:28 | 2 | 0 | 0:00 | 0 | 0 |
19 | Jiri Tlusty | 14:15 | 1 | 3 | 2:20 | 2 | 0 | 0:00 | 0 | 0 |
20 | Riley Nash | 9:22 | 1 | 4 | 0:52 | 1 | 0 | 1:11 | 1 | 1 |
21 | Drayson Bowman | 9:47 | 0 | 3 | 1:15 | 0 | 0 | 1:43 | 0 | 1 |
22 | Manny Malhotra | 9:33 | 0 | 4 | 0:31 | 0 | 0 | 3:48 | 1 | 1 |
27 | Justin Faulk | 17:13 | 3 | 6 | 3:37 | 1 | 0 | 2:14 | 0 | 2 |
28 | Alexander Semin | 8:57 | 1 | 1 | 2:58 | 1 | 0 | 0:00 | 0 | 0 |
39 | Patrick Dwyer | 13:07 | 3 | 6 | 0:00 | 0 | 0 | 3:35 | 0 | 1 |
44 | Jay Harrison | 16:03 | 1 | 7 | 0:00 | 0 | 0 | 0:18 | 0 | 0 |
58 | Chris Terry | 10:35 | 1 | 4 | 2:40 | 1 | 0 | 0:00 | 0 | 0 |
65 | Ron Hainsey | 15:23 | 1 | 2 | 3:20 | 1 | 0 | 3:29 | 2 | 0 |
73 | Brett Bellemore | 11:37 | 1 | 2 | 0:00 | 0 | 0 | 3:29 | 2 | 0 |
35 | Justin Peters | 5 | 14 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 3 |
Best EV Forwards: Eric Staal & Alex Semin EVEN
Worst EV Forward: Manny Malhotra -4
Best EV Defensemen: Brett Bellemore & Ron Hainsey -1
Worst EV Defenseman: Jay Harrison -6
Ryan Murphy was scratched to get Tim Gleason back into the lineup and the decision did not work out well at all. Along with Jay Harrison, Gleason was the Hurricanes worst defenseman and the Blues frequently exposed these two when they were on the ice. Neither are particularly fast or capable with the puck, so placing these two on the same pairing had bad matchup written all over it. Gleason playing on his off-hand didn't help either. I won't say anything about the forwards because none of them played well.
St. Louis Blues Individual Scoring Chances
Player | Goals | Shots | Chances | Attempts |
David Backes | 1 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
Jaden Schwartz | 0 | 2 | 2 | 4 |
Brenden Morrow | 0 | 2 | 2 | 3 |
Derek Roy | 0 | 3 | 2 | 3 |
TJ Oshie | 1 | 5 | 2 | 5 |
Vladimir Sobotka | 0 | 2 | 1 | 4 |
Alex Steen | 1 | 4 | 1 | 7 |
Patrik Berglund | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
Chris Stewart | 0 | 2 | 1 | 4 |
Roman Polak | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
Barret Jackman | 0 | 1 | 0 | 3 |
Jay Bouwmeester | 0 | 1 | 0 | 4 |
Kevin Shattenkirk | 0 | 1 | 0 | 4 |
Alex Pietrangelo | 0 | 3 | 0 | 5 |
Ian Cole | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
Max Lapierre | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
Ryan Reaves | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Vladimir Tarasenko | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 |
St. Louis Blues On-Ice Scoring Chances
# | Player | 5v5 | PP | SH | ||||||
5 | Barret Jackman | 14:07 | 4 | 0 | 0:00 | 0 | 0 | 4:06 | 0 | 1 |
9 | Jaden Schwartz | 9:56 | 2 | 1 | 3:14 | 1 | 0 | 2:09 | 0 | 0 |
10 | Brenden Morrow | 13:02 | 6 | 0 | 0:52 | 0 | 1 | 0:00 | 0 | 0 |
12 | Derek Roy | 8:04 | 1 | 1 | 3:12 | 2 | 1 | 0:00 | 0 | 0 |
17 | Vladimir Sobotka | 11:42 | 5 | 0 | 3:22 | 1 | 0 | 2:01 | 0 | 0 |
19 | Jay Bouwmeester | 16:22 | 5 | 4 | 4:25 | 1 | 0 | 3:33 | 0 | 2 |
20 | Alex Steen | 13:04 | 5 | 3 | 3:59 | 2 | 2 | 2:41 | 0 | 2 |
21 | Patrik Berglund | 12:08 | 2 | 1 | 0:52 | 0 | 1 | 1:25 | 0 | 0 |
22 | Kevin Shattenkirk | 13:47 | 3 | 0 | 3:20 | 1 | 1 | 0:50 | 0 | 0 |
25 | Chris Stewart | 12:05 | 6 | 0 | 3:41 | 1 | 0 | 0:00 | 0 | 0 |
27 | Alex Pietrangelo | 16:51 | 5 | 4 | 4:42 | 2 | 1 | 2:23 | 0 | 2 |
28 | Ian Cole | 13:30 | 5 | 1 | 0:05 | 0 | 0 | 0:00 | 0 | 0 |
40 | Max Lapierre | 7:55 | 1 | 1 | 0:00 | 0 | 0 | 2:51 | 0 | 1 |
42 | David Backes | 13:20 | 6 | 3 | 4:01 | 2 | 1 | 2:35 | 0 | 2 |
46 | Roman Polak | 14:07 | 5 | 1 | 0:05 | 0 | 0 | 4:26 | 0 | 1 |
74 | TJ Oshie | 11:45 | 4 | 3 | 3:53 | 2 | 1 | 1:36 | 0 | 1 |
75 | Ryan Reaves | 6:52 | 1 | 1 | 0:00 | 0 | 0 | 0:00 | 0 | 0 |
91 | Vladimir Tarasenko | 12:22 | 3 | 1 | 0:52 | 0 | 1 | 0:00 | 0 | 0 |
Best EV Forwards: Chris Stewart & Brendan Morrow +6
Worst EV Forwards: Ryan Reaves, Derek Roy & Max Lapierre EVEN
Best EV Defensemen: Barret Jackman, Roman Polak & Alex Pietrangelo +4
Worst EV Defenseman: Jay Bouwmeester +1
The Blues first and third lines ate the Hurricanes alive at even strength with David Backes doing most of the damage. He has gave the Hurricanes a lot of trouble in the past and that continued last night. The Blues defense corps also had a terrific performance overall, not allowing the Hurricanes to do much of anything when playing at even terms.
Head-to-Head at Five-on-Five
Nothing like playing on the road against a deep team to expose some depth issues. Carolina's third line was crushed by the Sobotka line and so were the Gleason/Harrison defense pairing. That duo seemed to have problems with everyone the Blues sent out against them, though. The only real positive thing here for Carolina is that their top-six performed well against the Backes line but St. Louis' top unit was able to make up for that against Carolina's bottom-six. Matchups, the Blues are good at them.
5v5 Zone Entries
Hurricanes
Player | # of entries | Shots generated | Carry-ins | Shots generated | Dump-ins | Shots generated | Failed Entries |
Sekera | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
Komisarek | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Gleason | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
J. Staal | 5 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
E. Staal | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Gerbe | 4 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
Ruutu | 5 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 1 |
Tlusty | 3 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
Nash | 4 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
Bowman | 7 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 1 | 1 |
Malhotra | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Faulk | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Semin | 3 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Dwyer | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
Harrison | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 |
Terry | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
Hainsey | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
Bellemore | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Team | 46 | 20 | 24 | 19 | 22 | 1 | 6 |
Good news: Carolina as able to carry the puck in more times than not, which is an improvement over past games. The bad news is that they had nine fewer entries than the Blues and weren't able to create much offense overall. The top-six was responsible for 10 of their 19 unblocked shot attempts off entries and the defense corps had one total carry in. The team creating one total shot off 22 dump-ins is also pretty atrocious.
Blues
Player | # of entries | Shots generated | Carry-ins | Shots generated | Dump-ins | Shots generated | Failed Entries |
Jackman | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 0 |
Schwartz | 5 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
Morrow | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
Roy | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Sobotka | 3 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Bouwmeester | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
Steen | 7 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
Berglund | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
Shattenkirk | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
Stewart | 7 | 4 | 6 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
Pietrangelo | 4 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
Cole | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
Lapierre | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 0 |
Backes | 6 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
Polak | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Oshie | 4 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Raves | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Tarasenko | 4 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Team | 57 | 31 | 30 | 21 | 27 | 10 | 8 |
The Blues had at least one player on their top three lines who could carry the puck in regularly and they gave the Hurricanes a ton of problems in the neutral zone. Oshie, Tarasenko, Stewart and Steen were the guys driving the bus and Backes also had a nice game. Teams with a lot of forward depth have given the Canes trouble this year (see Colorado) so it's not a surprise to see that the Blues posted some big numbers.
5v5 Zone Exits
Hurricanes
# | Player | Pos. | Touches | Carry | Pass | Other | Turnover | Icing |
4 | Andrej Sekera | D | 21 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
5 | Mike Komisarek | F | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
6 | Tim Gleason | D | 13 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
11 | Jordan Staal | C | 9 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
12 | Eric Staal | C | 5 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
14 | Nathan Gerbe | C | 7 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
15 | Tuomo Ruutu | R | 12 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
19 | Jiri Tlusty | C | 6 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
20 | Riley Nash | C | 4 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
21 | Drayson Bowman | L | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
22 | Manny Malhotra | C | 6 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
27 | Justin Faulk | D | 24 | 1 | 6 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
28 | Alexander Semin | R | 7 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
39 | Patrick Dwyer | R | 8 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
44 | Jay Harrison | D | 21 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 0 |
58 | Chris Terry | L | 5 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
65 | Ron Hainsey | D | 20 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 1 |
73 | Brett Bellemore | D | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Forwards | 72 | 15 | 6 | 2 | 6 | 1 | ||
Defense | 106 | 4 | 14 | 4 | 8 | 5 | ||
Overall | 178 | 19 | 20 | 6 | 14 | 6 |
I hate to beat a dead horse here, but this shows why pairing Harrison with Gleason is a bad idea. Playing Gleason on his off-hand forces Harrison to be the one leading most of the breakouts, which is not his best asset at all. Harrison's struggles with exiting the zone are masked when he is with a puck-mover like Murphy because he barely handles the puck in those situations. Pair him with Gleason and the situation changes completely and the results are predictably bad. Sekera also had a rough game and so did most of Carolina's forwards.
Blues
# | Player | Pos. | Touches | Carry | Pass | Other | Turnover | Icing |
5 | Barret Jackman | D | 9 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
9 | Jaden Schwartz | C | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
10 | Brenden Morrow | L | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
12 | Derek Roy | C | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
17 | Vladimir Sobotka | C | 3 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
19 | Jay Bouwmeester | D | 21 | 2 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
20 | Alex Steen | C | 5 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
21 | Patrik Berglund | C | 6 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
22 | Kevin Shattenkirk | D | 14 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 |
25 | Chris Stewart | R | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
27 | Alex Pietrangelo | D | 19 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
28 | Ian Cole | D | 16 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
40 | Max Lapierre | C | 6 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
42 | David Backes | R | 10 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
46 | Roman Polak | D | 17 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
74 | TJ Oshie | C | 7 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
75 | Ryan Reaves | R | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
91 | Vladimir Tarasenko | R | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Forwards | 51 | 10 | 13 | 0 | 3 | 1 | ||
Defense | 96 | 4 | 20 | 5 | 4 | 2 | ||
Overall | 147 | 14 | 33 | 5 | 7 | 3 |
St. Louis was very efficient at exiting th zone and moving the play forward, as all of their defensemen were able to advance the puck on at least 20% of their attempts. They also didn't have many touches because of how swiftly they were able to get the puck out of their zone & drive the play forward. Carolina didn't have much of a forecheck going, so that helped a little but St. Louis' defense is usually very good in this regard.