Depleted Canes Thrive in Tough Stretch

When the Carolina Hurricanes emerged from a weeklong quarantine, they were facing a stretch of three games in four nights against the two reigning Stanley Cup finalists.
The Canes were able to practice as a team only twice before tossed back into their regular-season schedule, and they were missing a handful of NHL regulars.

They were without one of the league's best defensemen. They were without an elite playmaking winger. They were without one of their leaders, the hype man who brings energy to the locker room and the bench. They were without a pest of a forechecker and reliable penalty killer. They were without a newcomer to the lineup that, in his first three games, had already acclimated himself pretty well.
In total, the Canes were missing five players who combined for 1,763 games of NHL experience.
In their place, five players entered the lineup who combined for 83 games of NHL experience - 71 of which belonged to one player alone.
Here goes nothing, right?
Though they lost two players, including Petr Mrazek, to injury and survived a couple of other close calls, the Canes collected six of a possible six points against the Tampa Bay Lightning and Dallas Stars to improve to 5-1-0 on the season.
"We're very happy - not content - but very happy with the way we're playing. It's our identity that we've wanted to build here for the last few years, and it shows. We didn't change our game," Jordan Staal said. "The boys, all throughout the lineup, did a great job of playing our game, being relentless, being hard on pucks and just finding ways to win games."
When defining the Canes' identity, look no further than the head coach. The team embodies the same approach he had in his 1,484-game NHL career, a game distinguished by hard work, a relentless attitude and a whatever-it-takes, championship mentality.
The Canes, even down Jaccob Slavin, Teuvo Teravainen, Jordan Martinook, Warren Foegele and Jesper Fast, played their successful brand of hockey that's suffocating at one end and persistent at the other. They made a new-look, more inexperienced lineup seem seamless in transition.
"That is how it's supposed to look. It doesn't really matter who goes in," Rod Brind'Amour said after Thursday's overtime triumph over Tampa Bay. "Now, there are times when the talent has to take over, but I felt like tonight it looked right. The effort was certainly there."
It began with a battle of goaltenders between Mrazek and Andrei Vasilevskiy, who went save-for-save with dueling clean sheets through 60 minutes of regulation on Thursday night. It was Mrazek who stayed perfect, making 32 saves on 32 shots for his second shutout in three starts. Martin Necas netted the game-winning goal 72 seconds into overtime to secure the extra point for the Canes in a
1-0 overtime victory
.

"It was definitely a great goaltending performance from both guys," Brind'Amour said. "I was really, really impressed with the way we played. We came out hard, and for 60 minutes, we were good."
The next-man-up philosophy was put to the test on Saturday when the Canes lost Mrazek to an upper-body injury not even three minutes into the game, an injury that is now perhaps "more serious" than it originally looked,
according to the latest update
. Later in the first period, Max McCormick suffered an upper-body injury, and an already depleted lineup was stretched even thinner.
You wouldn't have known it, though, with the way the Canes swallowed up an anemic Stars attack. James Reimer entered the game cold, but he didn't even really have to get warm. Dallas managed zero five-on-five shots on goal in the final two periods and finished the game with just 11 total shots on goal. Vincent Trocheck led the way offensively with three points (2g, 1a), as the Canes handed the Stars their first loss of the season in a
4-1 final
.

"You need everybody. You've heard Roddy say that from the get-go," Staal said. "I thought our team battled really hard tonight. We had some big moments from key guys and found a way to grind one out."
Less than 24 hours later in the rubber match, with yet another new face in the lineup, the
Canes did it again
. For the fifth time in six games, the power play got on the board, and on the flip side of special teams, the penalty kill was a perfect 5-for-5 and chipped in a shorthanded goal. Nino Niederreiter tied the game at three late in regulation, and Trocheck notched the deciding goal in the third round of the shootout.

"The effort, that's what's been really special. Everyone is just digging in, to a man. That's propelled us these last couple of games," Brind'Amour said. "The guys have buckled down and are getting it done."
While the lineup has been anything but consistent, the effort is the one aspect of the Canes' game that hasn't wavered. That in itself can make up for whatever else the team might be missing - even if it is a quarter of the typical roster.
"In other sports the best players have more impact. Basketball, for example, a guy plays almost the whole game. In hockey, you need to rely on so many guys all the time, different players. The best players only play a third of the game, generally. You rely on all 20 guys in hockey," Brind'Amour mused on Monday. "As long as you have enough skill and talent - which we do - you can make do, as long as you bring the work ethic. I think you can kind of cancel it out a little bit. That puts a little more pressure on the talent you do have in there to produce, but if everyone brings their A-game and follows the system we're trying to play, we have a chance to win every night."
Now six points richer on the other side of what looked to be a daunting three-games-in-four-nights stretch, the Canes are poised to reinsert to the lineup four of those five players they were missing as they hit the road for six straight, beginning with two games in Chicago.
It's been a tumultuous first few weeks of the season, but the Canes not only survived - they thrived.
"We knew we had to compete," Niederreiter said. "When you compete, anything is possible."