The final game before the bye week can be a revealing time for NHL teams. Teams that are “for real” won’t have much trouble staying focused for one more game before a vacation.
Teams that maybe still have some work to do, however, end up with a result kind of like what the Carolina Hurricanes produced last Sunday.
The Canes will certainly look at, and learn from, the game tape before ideally pushing the dud performance out of their minds forever. But what they find upon revisiting the defeat might surprise them. Poor defending, a lack of speed in transition play; it just wasn’t the way the Hurricanes have found success.