Canes Welcome Back Fans, Take 5-2 Win Over Red Wings
Cary, NC — What a night. The first home game with fans in over a year, the 100th win for head coach Rod Brind’Amour and the return of the beloved storm surge celebrations.
Brind’Amour Gets 100th Win
As a player, Rod Brind’Amour was a no-nonsense type player that brought his lunchbox to work every day and was in it for one thing—winning. Winning every day on every shift to be more specific.
If asked how he did so well and how he became one of the best in the faceoff circle, his answer would probably be, “that was my job and I’m supposed to win every faceoff.”
When asked what it was like to get his 100th win in the post-game Zoom call, Roddy responded that in the locker room, the players gave him the game puck and he responded, “what’s this for?’”And they said it was his 100th win, and he said “thanks, I didn’t know that.”
For Roddy, it’s all about execution and results. Always has been. Always will.
Svech vs. Svech and Staal vs. Staal
The game had several undertones that were making it exciting. In addition to the potential 100th win for Roddy,
- Andrei Svechnikov was playing against his older brother and best friend, Evgeny
- Caniacs were allowed, albeit just under 3,000, were allowed in the arena for the first time in over a year
- For the 56th time, Jordan Staal was playing against his brother Marc
- The Canes were fighting to extend their 3 game win streak
- There was a looming question of if there would be a Storm Surge
Injury Updates & A Sloppy Start
The Wings were without captain Dylan Larkin who has an upper-body injury. This is a big loss for a weak team whereas the Canes were still without Jake Gardiner, out with an upper-body injury and Petr Mrazek, who may be back before too long after severely dislocating his left thumb that required surgery.
Steve Lorentz, still smiling after his first NHL goal, was a healthy scratch as Teuvo Teravainen was back in the lineup.
The game started out sloppy with each team getting off a couple of shots then the flow to the other end with another couple of shots. Both the Canes’ Alex Nedeljkovic and Wings’ Jonathan Bernier were in goal being sharp, cutting angles, controlling rebounds and snaring snipes.
Andrei Svechnikov Delivers A Goal and an Extra Smile
Andrei Svechnikov was noticeably on fire. He’s been in a bit of a goal-scoring slump but is doing quite well dishing out assists, and maybe playing against his brother was the reason his play was exceptional.
He was literally skating circles around defenders, winning pucks in the corners, making difficult passes seem easy and hung on to the puck like steel to a magnet. Even with the sloppy play, the Canes slightly dominated possession, however, it was the Wings that broke the scoreless tie.
After the Canes defense flubbed a clear out of their zone, the Wings snared the weak clear, sending the puck low to set up a play. After passing the puck behind the net from the corner, Vladislav Namestnikov passed up to Filip Zadina along the half boards.
Zadina was stonewalled by Ned on a breakaway minutes earlier, but this time he had more time and space, and with Dougie Hamilton closing in and possibly proving a screen, sent a wrister to the far left of the goal on a pretty shot. Zadina has a huge amount of talent as he was taken #6 overall a few drafts ago but just hasn’t been producing as expected.
Right after that goal, gritty player Warren Foegele’s typical hard play drew a tripping call, giving the Canes the first powerplay of the game. Just as practiced so often, Jordo won the faceoff back to Hamilton. Dougie skated to the top center opening up the defense then flipping the puck to Svech, who saw Jordo well planted at the top of the crease.
He sent a laser wrister to the far upper corner with only 7 seconds gone on the penalty to tie the game. Couldn’t help but notice the extra-long smile on Svech as he passed his brother on the Wings bench.
Second Period Slump
The second period saw little improvement in the quality of the play over the first. Both teams were off their games, not that it was terrible, just neither team seemed to get a good steady flow. Everything was choppy.
The Canes killed off an early penalty by Jordo for a holding call that seemed to surprise him. Staal is a huge part of the PK but everybody stepped up. Brock McGinn and Sebastian Aho were very active upfront and the entire defense corps of Brett Pesce, Haydn Fleury, Brady Skjei, Jaccob Slavin and Jake Bean were rock solid.
A few minutes later, Pesch got his active stick under the skates of Robby Fabbri, putting the Wings on the man advantage. The first half of the PK was looking good, clearing the puck 200’ several times. After the Wings turned over the puck in the Canes end, forechecking by Evgeny Svechnikov along the near boards allowed him to push the puck to Adam Erne, who quickly passed to Zadina inside the far circle.
With the puck standing on edge, Zadina scooped up the puck sending it short side for the Wings’ 4th consecutive game with a powerplay. After that goal, the ice started to tilt in the Canes’ favor as they clearly were taking charge of the game, allowing for a better balance of all 4 lines taking normal shifts.
Necas Goal Proves to be Turning Point for Canes
Slavin was having his best game in a while, which is saying something as he is always a rock. At one point Anthony Mantha had a couple of strides on Slavin for a breakaway but Slavo not only caught up to Mantha, he swatted the puck just before a shot then retrieved the loose puck.
Those plays never make a scoresheet but are as important as goals and are noticed in big ways by the coaches on both teams.
Late in the period with the puck in the Wings zone, Skjei pinched along the far boards, stopping a clear and knocking the puck to the corner. Vincent Trocheck and Nino Niederreiter won the battle for the puck in the corner, playing catch once then El Nino made a centering pass to Martin Necas in the mid slot.
Necas settled the puck, saw the lane was packed with 3 defenders, wound up like Whitey Ford, sniping a shot into the upper left corner of the goal for the Canes first lead and a complete shift for the Canes controlling the game.
Staal, Fast and Niederreiter Pot 3rd Period Goals
Feeding off the Necas goal in the second, there was no stopping the Canes in the third. The score sheet will show the Wings had a game-high 14 shots in the period, but the Canes defense constantly were clearing the dirty area, giving Ned an easy time making key saves.
In the first minute of the period, Andrei Svech once again had the puck on his stick like a magnet. After stealing the puck along the boards he fed Hamilton on the point who sent a bomb high, banging off the glass. Svech went behind the net, snared the rebound, carried up along the far boards, cut towards the center, again fed Hamilton who sent a shot that hit Jesper Fast in the knee with Jordo 8’ away who slapped the rebound in for the Canes’ first lead.
The Staal line was the best line of the game. On their next shift, Fast was forechecking along the back boards, forcing a pass against the grain to the near corner. Andrei Svech was behind the play but caught up with Darren Helm, forcing a turnover that Staal jumped on quickly passing back to Svech.
Svech did some fancy stick handling going to the net that most thought was going to be a shot, but passed between 2 defenders over to Fast who had an easy tip-in.
With 5:15 left in the game, Detroit coach Jeff Blashill did a gutsy move. The Canes iced the puck as they had both offense and defense on the ice for well over a minute and were all tired. What he didn’t count on was Tro winning the faceoff and drawing the puck to the back boards.
Slavo retrieved the puck and slid a nifty backhand pass back to Tro just as he was being cross-checked. Tro goosed the puck over to Necas who sent a diagonal pass to El Nino right at the Canes blue line, skated two strides just as a defender closed in, shot the puck between the defenders legs 100’ into the empty net to seal the win.
The last question of the game was answered when the Canes lined up at the center circle and started the rhythmical Sokol clap which the Caniacs joined and sounded more like 15,000 rather than the 2,900 in attendance. At the end of the clap, all the Canes raised their sticks to the scoreboard where thanks were displayed for a front line worker. Classy.
Story by Bob Fennel. Photos courtesy of the Canes public Facebook page and Red Wings public Facebook page. See more Canes coverage on CaryCitizen.
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