A fluky bounce off a familiar name seals a familiar Hurricanes playoff performance
So much of this is drastically different, from the empty arena to the month on the calendar to the circumstances outside the building to the entirely new playoff round, so it’s a refreshing bit of continuity to have a Staal brother score a critical playoff goal for the Carolina Hurricanes.
If it was New York Rangers defenseman Marc Staal accidentally deflecting Martin Necas’ third-period shot past Henrik Lundqvist, well those are just details, right?
Funny. Fifteen years after then-Hurricanes general manager Jim Rutherford desperately wanted to draft the second Staal brother but felt he couldn’t pass up on Jack Johnson with the No. 3 pick, the only one of the four who hasn’t played for the Hurricanes gets his skate boot in the way and seals the Hurricanes’ 3-2 win in the first game of this best-of-five qualifying round series Saturday.
It was one of those little coincidences, of hockey and history, that always seem to stand out in sharp relief in the playoffs, even these very odd playoffs — even before Staal evened his account with a goal of his own short-handed in the tense final minutes.
But there was nothing coincidental about where it fit in the spectrum of the game, one the Hurricanes dominated almost entirely throughout, from an opening three minutes where the Hurricanes hit everything in sight, right down to Brady Skjei knocking former teammate Jesper Fast out of the game and Justin Williams bloodying Ryan Strome’s nose, and struck first through Jaccob Slavin a mere 61 seconds into the playoffs, on the Hurricanes’ first shot.
“Those three things were huge for us,” Sebastian Aho said. “It started with (Skjei’s) hit. That set the tone for us.”
If the deflection off Staal’s skate was a lucky break — if Necas’ shot had gotten through, Vincent Trocheck was standing ready at the far post — it was one the Hurricanes earned. With the exception of a second-period lull, they were by far the better team at five-on-five and the penalty kill was both busy and excellent. The power play looked great, converted early, then fell asleep on the Staal goal with 1:55 to go.
Rod Brind’Amour talked about picking up where the Hurricanes left off in March, and the difficulty thereof, but the Hurricanes made it look like they’d had a week off, not four months. Even in this fanless Toronto bubble, the intensity was there from both teams, but the Hurricanes were able to channel it into the grinding, forechecking style that is the epitome of their identity when they’re at their best.
It wasn’t a perfect performance — Brind’Amour will have to look long and hard at getting Trevor van Riemsdyk, a healthy scratch, into the lineup to address some defensive inconsistencies on a blue line still missing Dougie Hamilton and Brett Pesce — but it was classic playoff hockey in the most novel of conditions and most novel of complaints.
“I didn’t really care for — aren’t we the home team? — when their goal song came on after they scored,” Williams said. “I didn’t care for that.”
And they did it against Lundqvist, their bete noire, the old veteran starting unexpectedly after Igor Shesterkin was “unfit to play” in the new NHL verbiage, although he was in the building so it wasn’t a positive COVID test but an “upper body” or “lower body” injury in the old NHL verbiage.
It was still a vintage Lundqvist performance, the Hurricanes peppering him with shots without much to show for it, and it took a funky, fluky deflection from the one Staal brother who hasn’t worn a Hurricanes jersey to beat him.
This story was originally published August 1, 2020 at 3:02 PM with the headline "A fluky bounce off a familiar name seals a familiar Hurricanes playoff performance."
