We often talk about the young stars of the Carolina Hurricanes, but too little about Jordan Staal.
Updated yesterday at 11:48 p.m.
To count on a third center of this quality, at 6 ft 4 in, 16 seasons of experience in the body at 33 years old, a hundred games in the playoffs, is a luxury.
Staal was scoreless in the Hurricanes’ 5-1 win over the Boston Bruins on Monday night.
But with the advantage of the last substitution granted to the team at home, Staal was asked to follow the Bruins’ best center, Patrice Bergeron, like his shadow.
Not only did Staal and his linemates Nino Niederreiter and Jesper Fast help shut out the line of Bergeron, Brad Marchand and Jake DeBrusk, but Staal also maintained a 73% face-off success rate against 40% for Bergeron, the best in the NHL in this regard this season with a rate of 61.9%.
Hurricanes head coach Rod Brind’Amour didn’t beat around the bush when a colleague asked him to explain his team’s success against the Bruins’ top line in the playoff opener.
« The big man [le colosse] “, he replied tit for tat, referring to Staal. “He was solid. As it is in every game…”
Staal was also at the heart of his team’s efficiency in three unblemished penalty kills against Boston. The Hurricanes also finished first in the league in this regard this season.
The Bruins may have separated David Pastrnak from Bergeron and Marchand, once captain Bergeron is neutralized, there are still Erik Haula, Charlie Coyle and Tomas Nosek at center, nothing to scare the other three Hurricanes centers Sebastian Aho, Vincent Trocheck and Jesperi Kotkaniemi , all provided with quality wingers.
There was still some concern in Carolina with the injury to number one goalkeeper Frederik Andersen. But Antti Raanta, 32, hired for a quite reasonable $2 million per season for two years last summer, quickly reassured Hurricanes fans in the first period when the Bruins roared.
“The penalty at the start didn’t help, it put us on our heels,” noted Brind’Amour. They have been very good and rants [Raanta] made some big stops. We found our momentum in the second, didn’t have a good third period, but the goal of [Teuvo] Teravainen, while the Bruins were more reckless with a one-goal deficit, was huge. »
Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy also praised the Hurricanes goaltender.
“He made the saves,” he conceded to reporters. We had a few loose pucks around him, but we couldn’t take advantage of them. He is paid to play too and he has done a good job. He kept them in the game early in the game. It’s easier to face the Hurricanes with a lead. They play better ahead. They are built that way. They open the game more with the lead. We lacked finishing, it wasn’t a lack of effort. We couldn’t score early in the game. »
It was Boston’s first playoff game in the post-Retired Tuukka Rask era this winter. Despite his 28 years, Linus Ullmark, formerly of the Buffalo Sabers, was in his first appearance in the playoffs and he ran out of solutions.
There was nothing that the Hurricanes’ first two goals could do, shots from the point with opponents to obstruct his view, if not deflect the puck, a tactic repeated throughout the game by the locals, and Teravainen’s shot on a two-on-one attack was perfect, but he looked bad on the goal that would knock the Bruins out, Trocheck’s, on a shot from an impossible angle.
Can the Bruins shake off Raanta in Game 2? We wish them…
Maple Leafs blank Lightning 5-0
PHOTO FRANK GUNN, THE CANADIAN PRESS
Auston Matthews (34), Mitchell Marner (16) and William Nylander (88)
For the first time in the playoffs, Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner each scored in the same game and the Toronto Maple Leafs easily shut out defending Stanley Cup champions Tampa Bay Lightning 5-0 to win Game 1 of their first-round series on Monday.
Matthews hit the target twice and had an assist while his sidekick, Mitch Marner, had a goal and two assists.
The Maple Leafs’ special teams were imperial, scoring on the shorthanded and on the power play.
Jake Muzzin and David Kampf also hit the mark for the Leafs. Morgan Rielly and Ondrej Kase aided in two goals for the Leafs.
Jack Campbell stopped 23 shots for the shutout.
The Lightning struggled on the power play, including not taking a shot on net on a five-minute power play in the first period after Kyle Clifford was sent off.
The Maple Leafs forward shouldered Ross Colton, who did not have possession of the disc, against the boards.
The Lightning, visibly insulted by this result, fell back on indiscipline in the third period. Due to several fights, he conceded a four-minute power play in which the Maple Leafs saw a goal disallowed by video replay.
In a game marked by violence, the Lightning got 48 penalty minutes while the Maple Leafs were punished for a total of 52 minutes.
Andrei Vasilevskiy, guilty of a bad outing on the second success at Matthews, made 26 saves.
The game noh 2 of the series will take place on Wednesday in Toronto. The series travels to Tampa Bay on Friday for Game 3.
The Canadian Press