How Carolina ‘Shut Down’ Florida In Game 4

How Carolina ‘Shut Down’ Florida In Game 4

pack up the brooms and delay the trips to Cabo for at least one more game because the Carolina Hurricanes have stayed alive in game four and shut out the Panthers 3 nothing. It’s been a long 19 years since the Hurricanes won an Eastern Conference final game and they break the losing streak in game four. So, what’s happened? How did Carolina flip the switch? And will it even matter in the grand scheme of things? Let’s dive into it in this video. Now, one of the main reasons as to why Carolina is down in this series is because they haven’t had the lead once. They’ve been constantly chasing the game and ever since the start when you play behind the eightball against the Florida Panthers, it is a very steep uphill battle. The biggest thing the Carolina Hurricanes had to clean up coming into this one was puck management. They needed to find a far more efficient way of getting out of their own end and through the neutral zone because in game three, Florida torched them in this area. The Hurricanes had 14 turnovers that led to scoring chances against Carolina tried these little bump plays off the boards, but the waves and layers of Florida kept them in the right spot to create a turnover. If Carolina tried to carry it through the neutral zone, the strong gaps of Florida just forced them to make errors and well, things got out of hand. So, the response from Carolina in game four revolved around two things. Stretching the ice and using high flip plays like Florida to live and fight another day. First, let’s start with the stretch passes. Carolina knows that Florida is coming, so the mandate for their D is to get the puck out of your hands as quickly and clean as possible. Instead of having lots of support down low and on the breakout, they frequently sent their wingers to the red line or far blue line to stretch out Florida. While most of these stretch plays weren’t met with clean opportunities, Carolina was more than happy to get a stick on the puck to tip it in and then get on their toes to start the forche. when they had some more time to suck in Florida’s attackers with a DD pass. One quick stretch pass up the boards catches three Panthers deep with Carolina having numbers going the other way. It was clear in this game too that Carolina wanted to eliminate any extra thinking or stress on their D. So even when they were faced with immediate pressure, the forwards got to the wall so that Carolina’s D can go back and just throw a stretch pass up ice to eliminate any risk of Florida establishing their forche. Even if it wasn’t a clean reception like it is here after the stretch play, Carolina is far more content with dealing with that issue up ice rather than in their own end. The second method of dealing with Florida’s for check was taking it right out of their playbook with using high flips. The Panthers use this a lot if there’s no play available. They say screw it, high flip it out of the zone, punt the trouble, and maybe a streaking player down the ice gets a nice bounce for a chance. Carolina did this really well in game four. And on top of this, they made sure they had the weak side winger slashing across to potentially create a chance on the counter. So again, even when Carolina’s players were under intense pressure, they had this play in their back pocket for when things get rough. Here’s a great example as Stall is under duress. So high flip to get that right out of there and reload. But Florida is going to pick it up and immediately try to establish their forche again. Quick little chip along the boards. The weak side winger is slashing across for support. He pressures up ice and by quickly dealing with Florida’s forche, they get possession in the neutral zone. Once you establish somewhat of an answer for the Panthers forche, Carolina can start spending more time in the ozone where they can finally play their game. The Hurricanes like to run this 2-3 offense in the ozone that allows them to have a third forward up high to create some chances to attack downhill, but they keep it simple. Off possession, they have a third forward climb up high to get Florida to start to flex out and then they throw pucks on net with traffic to create some chaos. The Hurricanes are a shoot and retrieve team and when they’re at their best, they’re throwing a volume of pucks on net and then winning the 50/50 battles to extend the possession and get the other team running around with a bunch of chickens with their head cut off. When you do this with such consistency, you get players cheating to the net and collapsing to protect the house. And when that happens, Carolina can get some great looks across the seams for a high danger chance. Carolina also loves to use these offensive rims to get the defending team chasing the play by spreading out and switching sides. Washington went dizzy trying to defend this and in game four, Carolina got back to this simply because they had more time in the Ozone to get on the attack. However, the only good goal in this game came off a broken neutral zone play. Like I said in game three, the Panthers are so good at crowding one side of the ice, taking away the middle, and then forcing the play up the boards into all of their layers. In game four, they do exactly that. Everyone has their man heading up the boards, but it’s as simple as an offpuck route from Stankovven that creates the threat. He peels off towards the space while his man stays on his route to cut off the wall play. The rookie Neshan makes an unbelievable heads up play over to Stanky leg. And now all five players are caught on one side of the ice. Spankovven, best last name in the league, shaves the ear hair off of Officer Bob and goes top bunk in what would eventually be the gamewinner and very important cuz that’s the first goal of the game. Also, and one goal was just enough to be the gamewinner and it’s because the Hurricanes defended extremely well, especially on the penalty kill. The Panthers went 0 for four on the power play and it all started with them making them look all out of sorts on entries. Carolina has this 3-1 setup with three players stack in the blue line and all night their pressure forced Florida to rush their decisions. Even if they got the entry, immediate pressure would throw off the timing and Carolina would retrieve for a clear. The Hurricanes had the number one PK in the NHL for a reason. They play an aggressive box and their reads along with their work rate in this game were phenomenal. When Florida’s backs are to the middle, Carolina got aggressive, forced their hand and had the support in place to play cleanup. Of course, I can’t mention Carolina’s defense without mentioning Jacob Slavven. This guy is like a bad dream for offensive players. First, his willingness to block shots. Just staring down the barrel. He comes out of nowhere and eats the puck. This block here is just pure intelligence. Also on the PK, look at him cover and hold the ground on the far side of the net. That way, he stays out of the vision of Freddy while also allowing him to fully block the short side. That’s the type of synergy between a goalie and their defender that can take all season to build, even on entries as well. Good luck trying to shake this mutant. Perfect gap angles his guy off. The threat is gone within an instance. Hard to establish a forch check, too, when this guy’s literally picking off dumpins out of thin air. But his best piece of work was on Barov. Carolina plays a man-on-man. And watch him just suffocate Bararkov like a wet towel. Stick covers the middle. And now Bararkov is forced to cut back, but Slavven stays right with them and he lays him out. Then two seconds later, he races back to the net, knocks away a loose puck only to eventually be the man who clears the zone. Just an absolute rock back there, and so was Frederick Anderson. 20 shots his way, and he stopped all of them. He didn’t get the nod in game three, but he looked confident and calm right from the start in game four. When there was loose pucks around the net, he stayed efficient and limited his movement. His anticipation was sharp on high quality chances like this twoon-one. He trusts his D, doesn’t cheat by staying square to the shooter, and he turns it away. This broken play was his best save of the night in my opinion. Florida gets him moving laterally with solid puck movement, but he follows it all the way, gets set, and makes the save. All around, Fred X same day delivery was tracking the puck incredibly well all night. And as a result, he gets the shutty to keep the dream alive for Carolina. Now, everyone had the Panthers sweeping and everything was all roses with Brad Marshon smashing Dairy Queen in between periods, but this series is still going. Now, personally, I don’t see the Hurricanes coming all the way back and do something that only four teams in NHL history have done, which is come back from an 03 deficit and win the series, but this game is a blueprint for hope for Carolina fans. However, whenever the Panthers have lost in this postseason, their adjustments the following game have always been too much for the other teams to handle. And as for now, this series is still on. So, let us know what you think of game four. Do you think the Hurricanes pull this off, or are they just delaying the inevitable? Drop your thoughts in the comments down below. And if you want to see breakdowns on every single NHL playoff game, make sure you subscribe to the channel and turn on notifications so that you don’t miss a thing.

#hockey #nhl #highlights

In this video, we take a deep dive into game 4 between the Carolina Hurricanes and the Florida Panthers

Big thanks to Sport Contract as well: https://sportcontract.net