About Last Night: Max Pacioretty Experiences Hurricanes Hockey Debut

On January 18, 2019, after a 4-1 loss to the league’s worst Ottawa Senators home ice for Nino Niederreiters’ debut with the team, then-rookie head coach Rod BrindAmour walked slowly into the PNC Arena media room.

The Carolina Hurricanes had lost 25 of their 47 games to that point, but the loss felt utterly deflating, especially in the debut of a new scoring winger.

I said I apologized to him in the locker room,” BrindAmour said of Niederreiter. That effort… it’s not our team, and it’s his first game, so I’m sure he thinks… I don’t know what he thinks we are right now. Well fix that.

We know now that they did indeed fix it, but it was hard to imagine a debut game ending in as memorable a loss as the one in 2019. I mean, the head coach literally apologized to the player for how poorly his team played. .

Four years later, almost to the day, Max Pacioretty made his Hurricanes debut against Niederreiter and Nashville Predators. The 5-3 loss at PNC Arena certainly wasn’t nearly as deflating as the loss in Ottawa, but what it lacked in it, it made up for in pure irony.

The Hurricanes honored Paciorettys debut with a matching 67 shots on goal, tying a franchise record. They outshot the Predators by an insane 42 shots. 2.9 seconds into the third period before Colton Sissons scored an empty-net goal to make it a two-goal game and officially knock off the Corsi Canes.

In his first game with the team, Pacioretty experienced the historic level of Hurricanes hockey.

Let’s talk about last night.

Max Paccioretty impresses on debut

Pacioretty started the game on the fourth line with Jesperi Kotkaniemi and Derek Stepan. He finished the game on the first line with Sebastian Aho and Seth Jarvis.

That should paint a picture of how well things went for the 34-year-old.

His first shift was short, starting with a defensive zone opening, but in the second shift, he put two heavy shots on net. That change was eye-opening. His shot looks and feels different from the other scorers on the team. When Pacioretty releases the puck, you can almost feel its weight in the stands.

He finished the night with six shots on goal and two hits in 16:06 ice time. He was Carolina’s fifth-most used forward, and while he showed signs of rust late in the game when he was clearly out, it was a promising start for a player on a new team who had missed 38 games due to injury. it could have jeopardized his career.

Assuming he recovers well physically from last night’s game, it seems likely that Pacioretty will not start this weekend’s matchup with Columbus on the fourth line.

Sorrows of Saros

There have been countless instances where the Hurricanes have piled up shots on goal but not earned the win. Last night was by no means one of those nights.

By NaturalStatTrick, the Hurricanes had 6.45 goals – in all situations. That number is the third-highest of BrindAmours’ coaching season and just 0.02 behind Saros and the Predators’ 3-1 win in April 2021.

Their 27 high-danger shot attempts were the most this season and the third most since 2018. If the numbers feel hollow, here’s a visual representation of where Carolina’s shots are being taken.

Money puck

The Hurricanes certainly took a lot of low-danger shots, but they had almost as many quality chances to put the puck in the net. They wrote the big book three times, starting with Paul Stastny’s departure from the high ground.

The Hurricanes then caught the Predators on their heels during the first change of the second period, taking advantage of the extra space on the ice in a 4-on-4 and pulling off a dazzling series of layups. The last pass went from Brett Pesce to Brady Skje 2-1.

Their third and final result came from the third line doing what it has been doing all season. Jordan Martinook stripped Mattias Ekholm of the puck in the neutral zone, and Jesper Fast made a pass to Jordan Staal, who made a great read and fired into the offensive zone for the layup goal.

From then on, it was Juuse Saros’ show.

After allowing three goals on 28 shots through almost exactly half the game, the diminutive goaltender stopped 39 shots in the final 30 minutes, 28 of them in the third period alone.

Money Pucks tracking was less favorable to the Carolinas offense than NaturalStatTrick, but not by much. By Money puck, the Hurricanes scored 6.09 expected goals, which is still absurdly high. As expected, Saros saved 3.09 goals. He entered the game having saved just over 13 more goals than expected in his first 28 games, which is already near the top of the league.

Countless chaotic periods should have ended with Carolina goals. Paul Stastny had three high-danger shot attempts in about ten seconds during the second period changeover. Andrei Svechnikov made a very similar move later in the game.

The Stastny-centric line with Necas and Svechnikov was downright awesome from start to finish. With the trio on the ice, Carolina outscored Nashville 16-6 5-5 and took seven dangerous shots while giving up just two.

It’s easy to say it was another one of those games for the Hurricanes. Often this is an agreement, but this was not one of those cases. Saros was forced all night. He went all out, whether it was in stoppages, searching for pucks through a seemingly endless crowd, or even dropping his bat on a third-period opportunity to hit a fluttering puck that was supposed to tie the puck. game.

It was one of the NHL’s best goaltending performances this season. Unfortunately, it happened on a night when Pyotr Kochetkov struggled as he tried to fight through the rust.

Those losses hurt a lot less when you’re the second-ranked team in the NHL and just went an entire month without losing a regular season game. Process, especially in the offensive zone, wasn’t an issue last night.

If the Hurricanes follow up with a similar effort from last night, the odds will be in their favor against Columbus.