Canadian 2 — Hurricanes 6 | The road will be long

(Raleigh) We’re going to quickly go over the result and the final score, because right now that’s not really what matters.

The Hurricanes won this match quite easily – in third place anyway, it looked very easy – by a score of 6-2. Nothing surprising here. The two clubs are going in opposite directions, and in addition, Jesperi Kotkaniemi scored a goal of rare beauty, as if to drive the point home.

But that’s not what’s important here.

What is important is that the audition period has already started for 2023-2024. Martin St-Louis isn’t going anywhere, neither are his bosses, so right now, there are notepads that are blackening, ladies and gentlemen.

Because you have to determine who you want to bring back and who you don’t want to bring back, and then determine how you can get rid of those whose services you no longer want. And it turns out that the weaknesses are obvious when a club like the Canadian faces an opponent as formidable as this one.

The Montreal coach, who is usually able to see the glass half full, could not be very happy with this difficult performance. It’s one thing to see a Kovacevic struggling to keep up, it’s harder to see that experienced veterans like Wideman, Drouin or Dadonov can look completely mixed up for a very long 60 minutes.

“We are capable of playing with everyone, I think we have shown that,” added Martin St-Louis. It’s just that there are nights like that, there are times like that. We will watch the video, try to correct the errors. We will analyze this…”

The management of the Canadian can watch all the possible videos, including boxes and special editions on DVD, the reality is inescapable: there were Thursday evening in Raleigh several players who no longer deserve their place within this team. Not if the goal, in any case, is to build a winning culture in order to spawn with the elite in two or three years.

Then there are the others, those who might come back, but maybe not. It would be their time to shine a little.

“I just try to get on the ice and work as hard as I can,” replied Michael Pezzetta, scorer. I don’t like to start thinking about the future or anything like that. I focus on today, and I try to win today. I will think about tomorrow when tomorrow comes. »

But tomorrow will come soon enough. March 3 is coming soon enough too, and there will be decisions to be made. While it was partying here in the stands, while we were nonstop imitating Ric Flair’s screams in the third period and singing sweet carolina across the arena, there were a score of crestfallen faces on the visitors’ bench, as if reality had hit them hard.

Martin St-Louis often reminds us that the road will be long. That Thursday night in Raleigh was another proof of that.

In details

Finally, a Canadian goal in Raleigh

For reasons of a balanced schedule, the Canadian does not often pass through Raleigh. That hasn’t been the case recently, at least if you add to that the COVID-19 season, which was played entirely within an all-Canadian division. It is therefore with overflowing enthusiasm that we can say that Michael Pezzetta made history on this lovely Thursday evening in this part of the country. Indeed, his goal early in the game was the Canadian’s first on Hurricanes ice since December 31, 2019, when Max Domi scored the Canadian’s only goal in a 3-1 loss. Since then, the Canadian had played two other games with the Hurricanes and had been shut out each time, a long and disastrous drought that finally ended Thursday night. It was time.

Cam Ward at the Temple of the Hurricanes

Thursday night’s game started a good 30 minutes late because the Hurricanes took advantage of the Canadiens’ presence to admit Cam Ward to their Hall of Fame. It may not be a coincidence, since the goaltender really made a name for himself during the 2006 playoffs against the Canadiens. Down 0-2 in the series, Ward was sent in goal for the Hurricanes, in place of Martin Gerber, and the Hurricanes won the next four games…and the Stanley Cup later. “Everyone talks about that moment, but us players didn’t think about it too much because we knew what Cam was capable of,” coach Rod Brind’Amour said earlier Thursday morning. . He was very good, he just wasn’t getting a lot of starts that season. But we saw what he was capable of from there… ”

Monahan? Mystery

We have come to the moment in history where we have to wonder if there have ever been more mysterious things on this Earth than Sean Monahan’s injury. Sure, one can think of the pyramids of Egypt, Stonehenge, or the (alleged) crash of an alien craft in Roswell in 1947, but Monahan’s eventual return arguably ranks somewhere on that list. Thus, the attacker, who has not played since December 5 and who was to return to the game, but has not yet returned, trained with the Canadian Thursday morning in Raleigh, but wearing a jersey prohibiting checks or any form of reconciliation. He didn’t play Thursday night’s game, and it’s unclear if he’ll be able to play the next one, Saturday in Toronto. As of Thursday, Martin St-Louis did not know either. So, it is possible to believe that Sean Monahan lives day to day. But don’t we all do it?