Carolina Hurricanes stick to the process in shutout win over Rangers

Carolina Hurricanes stick to the process in shutout win over Rangers

the one and only EJ Ratic, NHL Network first shift on a busy hockey Wednesday. He joins us on the Adam Gold show. I’m feeling pretty good about the Hurricanes at 84 and0 after a shut out of the Rangers. I think they were good last night. They’re not close to their best at this point in the season, but man, they just absolutely shut the Rangers down last night. I don’t know how much of that game you caught. I thought the Rangers were bystanders the last 30 minutes. Yeah. Well, I mean, let me just let me just hijack you here for a second and just say this. Just say this. The the Carolina uniforms they wore last night might be my favorite uniforms in hockey. Whoa. I really like th those were clean the white jersey. They have the red what is it? The red on the kind of sleeve and they and and I’m not usually a big fan of the the red helmet with the white jersey. But like with that uniform, I think the whole thing works great. I love the patches on the shoulders. I just think that’s a great look. The whole uniform is great. And as someone who calls games and sometimes has to call them off the monitor. Yes. like the clean look of those numbers and names, which I, you know, aside from just me, you know, not every fan who goes to a game who’s sitting up in different parts of the arena has a great view or maybe knows the players all that well. So, I just think that’s another thing to consider. So, beautiful uniform. So, there you go. I wanted to get that. Thank you. Maybe the Rangers were admiring them in the third period. Could have been. Could have been because on the flip side, the Rangers with red numbers on blue jerseys, right? Mike F, they may not have known who was who. So, you know, that’s that’s a possibility. I don’t know. Maybe that’s the problem on home ice for the Rangers because uh I mean to get shut out in four of your first six Yeah. home games and to score just six goals in those games and five of them came in one game against San Jose and they still ended up losing, right? Uh it’s kind of hard to imagine, but yeah, Carolina came in and played very well. You’re missing some players. I mean, you know, obviously Jacob Slayman has only played a couple of games this year and, you know, he’s a huge part of their team and Keandre Miller did not play last night and he’s missed some time. I mean, uh, and hey, the goalender making his debut that if you want to make your debut, no better time than make it with a shut out. So, uh, you know, it was a it was a really strong performance and, uh, you know, I think once they And also one other thing, how about the first goal of the season for Nikolai? That monkey is off his back. It’s about time. A lot of things a lot of things went right last night for the Canes for sure. Yeah. You know what’s interesting about and I’ll just I’ll go to uh Kachetkov here. We he watched Brandon Busy play four really good games and he’s three and one and you know not that fan Twitter really matters to what the decisions are made but they were already talking oh we got to move on from Kachette. Busussy is everything. And I’m like look Brandon Busy’s been great. But I do recall the same conversation being had about Spencer Martin a year and a half ago and Martin’s no longer in the organization because we saw last year that a steady diet of that is not NHL quality. I mean Martin’s I think save percentage last year was like 860. Um now Busy’s been very good. Arguably their best goalender through the first 12 games of the season. We know Freddy’s the number one, but Kachkov reminded everybody last night that the ceiling for him is very high. What they have to worry about is where how far the floor goes. But there was no floor last night. He was awesome. And he’s great. His look at his record just against Shusturkin. He’s 5 and2 with a 936 save percentage just against Igor. Yeah, that’s that’s impressive. Uh, you know, listen, I I’ve liked coach, uh, you know, since he’s come into the league. He’s had his ups, he’s had his downs. I think you say it really well. I mean, you know, when he plays well, he could play very well. The question is, can he be consistently good? Is there a is there a, you know, is when he goes if it goes bad, is it just really bad? Yes. And so, you know, that’s that’s the negative. But, you know, listen, this league, it’s it’s so hard to find guys who are consistently good, you know, in goal. I mean, we you look around the league, you see it. There’s there’s, you know, I remember uh, you know, talking to Chuck Fletcher one time, he talked about goalies. They’re like pitchers a lot of times, you know, like one year they’re, you know, 16 and six and then the next year they’re nine and 12. It’s uh, you know, and so it is hard and and you know, when you have somebody that’s reliable and has gives you a consistently good effort all the time, those are the guys that end up being the great goalies. So, but it’s a good start for him and a little competition. I’m sure he sees that Busy is playing well and Busy is is a guy that played well in the minors and is trying to push into a job in the National Hockey League. So, listen, the competition is good. And uh for the for the Canes, who as I mentioned had a number of guys that still don’t have anywhere near their lineup is uh was a really impressive performance. Yeah, the the truth is that guys like Slavven and Miller really help Carolina’s offense because they’re so good defensively. And I think this is this this is actually the underdisussed part of why Carolina hasn’t looked Carolinaish in terms of puck possession, shots on goal, all of that stuff. That wasn’t there last night. They just were great defensively. And it leads me into the next part of the uh this discussion. EJ Ratic, are the Rangers cooked? Cuz they looked cooked to me. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is what I would say. I mean the strange thing is when you watch them at home you quickly come to the conclusion that to use your word they’re cooked but then when you notice that they are oh they are 61 and one on the road and just won their last three games on the road after you know a four game road trip where they lost to Calgary to start but then were able to beat uh Edmonson Vancouver Seattle um you know you wonder just what is going on at home they’re they’re going to get Vincent Troche back at some point. I think that that will I think set their top six up a little bit better because they could move him in with Paneran. Panaran has really struggled this year thus far. Yeah. And you know, he plays well with Trochek. So, you know, you can put those two together. You can put Miller and Dean out together and now all of a sudden you can kind of your team is slotted a little bit better. But, you know, I I don’t I don’t love the roster. I mean, I think Mike Sullivan’s got them defending way better, so I think that’s a huge plus. I think Shurkin is still maybe the best goalie in the league, you know, consistently. He is really good. Um, the defense has kind of been, you know, the defensive core there when you look at them one through six, okay, not anything special. I think Adam Fox has been okay so far. Um, but that forward group, I mean, their fourth line when Matt Rempy was healthy was like a nice fourth line. Yeah. But the problem with that is that if your first three lines aren’t really good, your fourth line is not really matter, right? You know, I mean, a fourth line matters when your first three lines are slotted well and that fourth line can go out and and bring energy. So, I’ll be curious. I want to withhold judgment, I guess, until Troche comes back and see if he can kind of get Paneran going. Paneran did a contract year. Uh Zabanad, you know, earlier in the year I, you know, as the Rangers have been really struggling in these home games, uh I went in the room after a game and Zabanad was kind of beside himself just looking into space and just wondering, you know, what it’s going to take to get things going and then they went on the road and had a good road trip. So I don’t want to say they’re cooked. I mean, look at the division, right? I mean, everybody’s, you know, everybody’s top to bottom is tight, right? So, um, you know, we’ll see. I think, uh, I think they’re still learning that system a little bit. I think Troche comes back. They have the elements to to kind of be in games, and if they could just get their if they can bring their road game home once in a while, I mean, they would be they would be better off. But, uh, I’m not far off the are they cooked question, right? Wow. The third period, the third period at home in a two nothing hockey game was uh noticeably without fight. And I thought and maybe that’s just Carolina was that good. Uh but I thought I thought Carolina was good, but I didn’t and and Carolina really wasn’t pushing forward necessarily for for more. So I think they made it a lot more difficult. Let me just get to the other division in the East. Okay. Is the Atlantic division upside down at this point? Uh, it’s it’s going to be, you know, I’ve said this on this, you know, the show I do and uh I’ve been saying it to people lately is I just think this is going to be a weird season. I mean, we got the Olympics, we got this crazy schedule, uh, you know, and like we have so much par and like teams that have been at the bottom for a while are, you know, those young kids that they’ve drafted are starting to bubble up. I mean, look at Anaheim out west. I mean, they had another nice win last night in Florida. cutter go cutter goier 10 goals. I mean that kid is going to be I thought he would score 40 goals this year and he’s well on his way. Um you know and then you look in the you know the Atlantic this year and you got you know Montreal and Detroit you know kind of at the top of things. They’ve been you know Montreal made the playoffs last year. Detroit has missed the playoffs for several years but you know they they both look legitimate. U you know Montreal I mean they just they’re never out of a game. They were down three nothing last night. They rallied to take the lead. ended up losing the lead going into an overtime situation and shootout. They ended up losing for the first time out of six trips into overtime. I I got to I’m doing the work on it right now, Adam. I’m trying to figure out like percentage of games that’s gone to overtime this year. It seems like a higher percentage right now. Crazy than we’re used to. So, I just think that the the parity is catch is caught up with everybody. And like, you know, you think three or four years ago in the Atlantic, right, we knew what it was. It was Tampa, it was Florida, it was Boston, right? And you know, it was Toronto and that was it. And then the bottom was, you know, you know, it was Buffalo, Montreal, and Detroit, and Ottawa. And now those four, you know, those teams have all gotten better. Y and you know, if Florida had their players, I think Florida’s still sitting at the top. Agree. But they’re missing like their number one center. Um, you know, missing a really good defense and they’re missing players. I mean, this is this is and missing their their number one winger disturber, you know, so to speak. So, you know, it’s a struggle for Florida right now. No matter who you are, you can’t lose those kind of players and not have it impact you. But to answer your question, yeah, I think the division is kind of upside down. And I won’t be, you know, Toronto, I think, you know, I talked about them a lot over the last two years. They’re always a kind of in the conversation. And last year, so many things went right for them. Like I still think they have a pretty good team and I’m of the mind that if they get in the playoffs like the team they have this year could be tougher to deal with because of some of the pieces. But the problem is they might not make the playoffs right because the year it’s going to be a long hard year and I think you could you could almost say really almost anybody it’s it’s it’s not going to be easy to make the playoffs for any of these teams this year. I just think it’s going to be kind of a wild ride. Yeah. The other thing about Florida, and I want to move on to uh one more thing before we let EJ Ratic go. The other thing about Florida is that um the the the absence of Bararkov has made it more difficult on guys like Sam Reinhardt. So, I read a really good article about Reinhardt when he doesn’t have to be the guy is free to just do his thing. But now he’s sort of looked at, oh, we need your goals. There’s no Kachchuckup. There’s no Barkoff. Not that Barkoff is, you know, like a a McKinnon or McDavid scoring machine, but he makes life so much easier for Reinhardt. And that’s missing. And they’ve got a lot of players playing uh out of position is not the right word, but in terms of responsibility, out of position. And this is it leads more more uh evidence to my thought that if not for fantasy, but if I were drafting the entirety of a healthy NHL, I would take Barkoff over everybody. That’s McDavid, that’s Dry Cidle, that’s McKinnon, cuz I think he does more things to help you win than any player in the league. I think he’s the best defensive center in the sport as well as being a great offensive player. Let me ask you one more thing before I have to let EJ Ratic go. We’re not hearing any talk about trading Sydney Crosby now, are we? No, we aren’t. No, we aren’t. What a start for them. And let me tell you, I was one of those people that was uh wanted to bring it up a lot. Oh, I want him here. Yeah. Well, just just because I just think that I don’t blame you. Um I I uh I have so much respect for Sydney Crosby. I mean, like when you think about we’ve had 25 years of hockey this century, right? A quarter of a century. and he has been the standard bearer. I know McDavid has been unbelievable, but Sydney Crosby has been the standard bearer for this league and just everything he’s done. He’s one of the top five players to ever play the game. Uh he will go down that way uh when his career is over and his numbers could even be more prolific when you think about he missed some significant time. Yeah. Kind of in the middle of his career with some concussion issues and thankfully he was able to recover from those and get back playing. But um yeah, I mean, and because of that respect, I didn’t want I don’t want to see him waste the final years of his career on a team that’s not competitive. But you know, that said, um now they’ve had a couple losses in a row. They had a bad loss in Toronto the other night. They’re through 14 games. Who knows if any of this stuff is sustainable, but you know, they’ve been really competitive. Dan Hughes has come in as the head coach. And I think there’s a lot of kind of us against the world, like there isn’t a lot of rooms, right? Like you know when you’re a team that’s missed the playoffs a couple years in a row and people are talking about hey you know we should trade you know Crosby’s got to get out of there and they should trade Carlson and Malcolin is washed up and you know those goalies who knows what’s going on there and like this is a team they need to just completely rebuild in the room amongst the players and the coaches like Dan Hughes just arrived there he’s not looking to say hey let’s just lose you know let’s or let’s be okay with losing he’s there to win and the players are there to win and Sydney Crosby is anybody more compive competive than him. Andy Malcin has is got a lot of motivation right now. His career contract is up. He wants to continue to play money and legacy or whatever you want to call it. Those are those are strong motivators. So, uh, you know, and they’ve gotten some good performances from some players you wouldn’t have expected. The young Ben Kindle has come in and played well at least at the start. Their goalies have been very good to start the season. So, you know that right now they’re off to a good start. We shall see if it is sustainable. But gotta give them a lot of credit because nobody was telling me and me included, nobody is talking about the Penguins being a team that could be a playoff team even. They were a team that were likely going to be out of the playoffs and it was going to be a fire sale and the only question is would Sydney Crosby be willing to move because that ultimately will be his decision. And so that was it. So, you got to give Dan Muse and everybody there, you know, a lot of credit because, uh, you know, they’re like Anthony Manta, Jason Brazzo, I mean, these are guys, they have a lot to prove. Yep. And so, they’ve played well to start the season. So, you know, we’ll see where it goes from here, but it’s been a good start. It’s been it’s been uh awesome to watch. I have a lot of friends who are Penguins fans, uh, and they are like, I can’t believe it either. They they did not expect it. The only team that was actively trying to not improve in the off season has gotten significantly better. Uh that is sports in a nutshell. If I That’s incredible. So true. All right, sir. EJ Ratic, NHL Network First Shift. Thank you so much, EJ Ratic NHL. Uh appreciate your time as always. I think I forgot a hyphen in there. There there’s a hyphen between the K and the NHL. I don’t I don’t even know anymore. But you can find it, you know. There you go. Thanks, man.

EJ Hradek, NHL Network analyst, joins the Adam Gold Show to discuss the Carolina Hurricanes’ 3-0 victory in New York over the Rangers. How were the Canes able to stifle the Rangers to the point that they went 20 minutes of game time without a shot?

Find us anywhere!

The Fan App for iPhones: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/99-9-the-fan/id6749218703
The Fan App for Androids: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bal.thefan&pcampaignid=web_share&pli=1
Website: https://www.999thefan.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/999thefan
X (Formerly Twitter): https://x.com/999TheFan
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@999thefan
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/999thefan/
LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/99.9TheFan

This podcast is presented by Hempie’s, North Carolina’s premium hemp dispensary. Order online at https://www.hempies.co

#hurricanes #nhl #hockey #prohockey #professionalhockey #canes #carolinahurricanes #carolina #kochetkov #andreisvechnikov #sebastianaho #jaccobslavin #pyotrkochetkov #JalenChatfield #AnttiRaanta #JackDrury #JordanStaal #JordanMartinook #letsgocanes #causechaos #nhlplayoffs #stanleycup #stanleycupplayoffs #sports #999thefan #takewarning #raiseup #BrindAmour #stanleycup #erictulsky #stankoven #jankoski #nikolajehlers

This podcast is presented by Hempie’s, North Carolina’s premium hemp dispensary. Order online at hempies.co.