Some good and some bad in preseason debut
The Carolina Hurricanes generated a lot more shots than their opponents but the Columbus Blue Jackets had the better chances as the visitors ruined new had coach Bill Peter's preseason debut, 4-3 in front of a small crowd on Sunday afternoon at the PNC.
Peters said that he saw some good and some bad but admitted his team gave up some prime chances.
"We didn't give up much quantity but we gave up quality, so I wasn't happy with the quality of the chances we gave up," said the coach.
The coach said that the mistakes were easily correctable though and he said that he felt Cam Ward played well. Ward was the victim of a breakaway and an open shot as he allowed three goals on the 13 shots he faced.
Alex Nedeljkovic replaced him as was planned half way through the game. The rookie allowed a goal on the first shot he saw but stopped everything after that as he didn't see many more shots, (1-6).
In all, the Canes outshot the Jackets, 32-19 for the game.
The good news for Carolina is that their powerplay looked much better than last season and that it seems that their work in practice has been paying off. They went 2-5 in the game as Andrej Sekera and Chris Terry each had goals with the man advantage.
The Canes jumped out to a 1-0 lead on Sekera's goal as the defenseman crept in along the side to beat goalie Anton Forsberg. But two minutes later, Cam Atkinson broke in all alone after Ryan Murphy had attacked down low in the offensive zone and no one covered for him.
The Jackets would score two more and stake themselves to a 3-1 lead before Riley Nash scored to make it 3-2 on a Jeff Skinner rebound. Atkinson then scored his second of the game to make it 4-2 and it stayed that way until Sergey Tolchinsky found Terry alone as the Canes worked the puck beautifully with the man advantage to make it, 4-3 with 7:52 left in the game.
The Canes pulled their goalie with about 1:30 left, then a bit later called time out to set up a play, but could not tie the score.
The team will next hit the road and will play the Buffalo Sabres on Tuesday night.
Game Notes:
- Sekera played 24:39 and Murphy 23:12 to lead the home team in ice time.
- Haydn Fleury looked a bit over-matched at times in this one, which is not to be unexpected in his first match up against NHL size and speed.
- Jeff Skinner finished with two assists. He looked very good with Elias Lindholm at times and Nash had some good moments as well.
- Sekera and Skinner led the way with five shots each.
- Brad Malone had a team high four hits. The team was credited with 21 for the game.
- John-Michael Liles blocked four shots, a game high. Murphy was next with three.