Recap: Canes' Strong Second Half Not Enough Against Nashville

RALEIGH, NC - The Carolina Hurricanes wrapped up the home portion of their preseason schedule Tuesday night, concluding it with a 3-2 overtime loss to the Nashville Predators.

"I thought the first half was a little rough. For the guys that hadn't played, the pace wasn't quite up to speed," Rod Brind'Amour began with post-game.
Nashville opened the contest with a goal just 27 seconds in, as Ryan Johansen was able to tuck a rebound effort behind Antti Raanta, who was making his second consecutive start in net for the team.
Thankfully Carolina was able to respond relatively quickly though, as a chaotic scene that began with a Steven Lorentz shot from the left wing eventually finished with the team's equalizer. As a crowd of Predators and Canes alike gathered in Juuse Saros' crease in search of the loose puck, Lorentz was able to swing behind the net and appear on the other post to poke it home.

After the two goals on the first six shots of the night, things then drifted toward normalcy. Sans a Matt Duchene power play goal to start the second period, the head coach was much more in favor of the way things went from there.
"The second half was exactly the way we want to play," Brind'Amour continued. "I actually feel really good about the game. The result? Whatever. But overall, I would much rather play the way we played in the second half than the other way around."
Tripling the shots output of their opponent in the middle period, Carolina wasn't able to tie the score at that juncture, but they were able to put strong pressure on the Predators.
That pressure appeared to have built some confidence that stemmed into the third, where then the game would eventually become 2-2. Ian Cole made himself well-noticed in the final 20 minutes, starting with a

along the wall that caught the attention of the crowd. Then, with under seven minutes remaining, he was able to fit a pass through a seam from his own blue line to Jesper Fast along the far wall to setup the game-tying tally.
With speed in front of the team's benches, Fast retrieved the perfectly-placed delivery and a short handful of strides later wound up for a healthy blast that made its way to the back of the net.

Entering the late stages of the game still knotted at 2-2, the two sides made their way to overtime, setting the stage for yet another Carolina-Nashville sudden death finish.
In comparison to last season's playoffs, this one had just a tiny little less on the line though. Nashville's Philip Tomasino was able to beat Raanta from out in front of his cage with 2:12 to go in the overtime period, making good on a feed from down low by Filip Forsberg.
Beyond The Final
Jarvis Making Life Tough
Skating alongside Nino Niederreiter and Jack Drury, a lot of the post-game attention was surrounding forward Seth Jarvis. The 19-year-old made his presence felt once again, and despite only officially recording two shots on goal, it was the jousting in front of the net with Roman Josi, and blocked shot in his own end during overtime that his head coach took notice of.
"He played pretty well. He certainly doesn't look like a teenager in his first camp," Brind'Amour said. "He was impressive, that's all I can say. He looks like he belongs in this league for sure."
You can sense in every bit of Brind'Amour's tone that Jarvis is building his case more and more every day, leaving both the head coach and General Manager Don Waddell with a very difficult decision to be made within the next 10 days.
Onward to Nashville
It's an incredibly positive sign that Brind'Amour is pleased with the way his team has played (for the most part) in the last two games. The result in both games has not favored the Canes, but he's made clear that that's not what this is about this time of year.
The process is in place and the team is getting closer each day to being ready for when it counts next week.
"That's the beauty of the preseason," Lorentz said when reflecting on the bigger picture. "A loss is a loss and nobody wants to lose, but there's so many positives we can take away from that game. Early on we showed a lot of rust, and that's to be expected. That's what preseason is for, but eventually as the game went on we started to get into our habits and got a little bit better."
The Canes round out their preseason schedule Saturday afternoon in Nashville at 4 p.m.