Higher Plane Hockey

Carolina just lost 6-5 in the second overtime to Montreal in Game 2 of their first-round series, putting the Habs up 2-0 on the way home to the Bell Centre for two games that could end this magical year for the Canes.

I suppose it's early to write an obituary, and I'd love to eat my words. But Carolina probably could have survived either the Cole injury or Gerber's meltdown. The combination of the two, though, is what killed the Hurricanes. A correspondent to the News and Observer's playoff blog did the analysis of the Cole injury's effect on linemates Staal and Stillman, and both averaged half a point per game less after Brooks Orpik broke Cole's neck in March. Carolina's offense never recovered.

Meanwhile, Martin Gerber simply ran out of gas: his NHL career high in appearances was 32 before this season, last year was his professional high with 50 split between Switzerland and the Swedish Elite League, but this year he played 60 regular season games plus the Olympics. It proved to be too much, and his mediocre to bad play recently has reflected it. Cam Ward isn't ready for the full NHL grind yet, but he's going to have to handle at least 30 games next year. Gerber can't do this himself.

So you have that confluence of problems. Add the Carolina scheme to that list in the narrow case of multiple-OT playoff games. It's still a trade-off I'd make in a second, but the high-tempo style the Canes played all year is a detriment if the game goes to lengthy amounts of overtime. Legs are done after about ten extra minutes, and after that you get fatigue penalties, major line mix-and-match (was that Chad LaRose killing a penalty?!), and a set of intractable problems.

Give Cam Ward major credit overall for his play in this game, and he should absolutely start Game 3. But I'll play the bad guy here myself and point out that, after the Canes took the 4-3 lead, he lost focus for all of a minute, and Montreal made him pay. I'm least worried about him, though. He's a rookie backup goaltender, he's here to learn. And he will.

Mostly, I just hate Brooks Orpik. It was a beautiful year before one lousy Pittsburgh thug playing out the string ushered the stench of death into the room. And for it, the new NHL gave him three meaningless games' punishment.

I guess in some ways we're still old, snakebit Hartford, even nine years on.

Team USA and Team Canada were both unceremoniously dumped from the Olympic men's hockey tournament Wednesday, America 4-2 by Finland and Canada 2-0 by Russia. They won silver and gold in Salt Lake City four years ago, but will fly home from Turin empty-handed this time. Reactions from the hockey press both north and south of the 49th have been rather vitriolic at times, but I'm not sure that's called for.

The general tenor in the USA has been the calmer of the two for two reasons: this team wasn't expected to do well, and hockey simply doesn't matter as much here. The team's final record was 1-4-1, but the flow of play actually looked better than most hockey observers expected from this team before the tournament; the three preliminary losses were by one goal, and America wasn't able to finish plays with any regularity.

American hockey is caught in a generation gap this year. The core of this team has been intact since the 1996 World Cup of Hockey win, and the brightest American stars since then are currently in college or just beginning their NHL careers: expected 2006 #1 draft pick Phil Kessel at the University of Minnesota, 2005 Carolina #2 Jack Johnson at the University of Michigan, New Jersey's Zach Parise, etc. Those players will feature at the 2010 games in Vancouver, but were not ready yet; meanwhile, the '96ers were mostly in their upper 30s or early 40s, and it showed, especially on the larger international ice surface that required consistent hard skating. It's arguable that head coach Peter Laviolette and general manager Don Waddell could have selected a few more young players, or even changed up a veteran or two (Brian Leetch for Derian Hatcher seemed to be the primary desire pre-Olympics), but results likely wouldn't have been much better. You can't win all the time, and sometimes we Americans have trouble with that concept.