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Playoff GDT: Round 1, Game 1 Canes v. Senators 4/18 3:00

A

andyt

Canes Moderator
Staff member
It begins.

Most of what can be said was said in the preview thread. One area of concern for the Canes; faceoffs. Ottawa tied for first in the league in faceoff win % at 54.2%. The Canes were 16th at. 50.1%. For a team that relies on puck possession, winning faceoffs is key. Staal took the 2nd most faceoffs in the league behind Nico Hischier and won 55.5%. Jankowski was at 51.4%, Aho 50.5% and Stankoven 44.4%. Among Senators thst took at least 500 faceoffs, Ridly Grieg was the worst at 51.2%. Claude Giroux was at 63.1%, Lars Ellen 54%, Dylan Cozens 53.2%, Tim Stutzle 53% and Shane Pinto 51.8%

Black jerseys, FanDuel and ESPN for TV. John Buccigorss and AJ Mlezcko have the call on the latter.
 
andyt said:
Among Senators thst took at least 500 faceoffs, Ridly Grieg was the worst at 51.2%. Claude Giroux was at 63.1%, Lars Ellen 54%, Dylan Cozens 53.2%, Tim Stutzle 53% and Shane Pinto 51.8%
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63.1% -- wow! That is a matchup concern, especially on the road. We'll give Stank's line a healthy dose of offensive-zone starts (also especially on the road) to minimize any damage.

Headed out to our 6000-lot tailgate group at noon!

Canes in 6, starting with a W today!
 
Nervous about this game and this opponent. I think we will prevail, but this will be a decidedly tougher matchup than we faced in previous playoffs. Headed out to the LC at 11:45 - let's go Canes!
 
They deserve to be swept out of the next 10 playoff series for that god awful ‘music’ video. Whether they had anything to do with it or not. I had nightmares last night
 
OK, so … Game Ones are always kind of weird because you have to both factor in what happened down the stretch AND completely ignore it. Ottawa collected themselves nicely after a goalie-induced skid in late March but they were in grind mode for the entire post Olympic break part of the schedule. Carolina on the other hand also finished strong, but did so in cruise control while resting key players and old guys. How worn out is Ottawa from the grind? How off their cadence are the Canes from their roster shuffles? God alone knows, but in general the team with the most post season experience tends to start better … without any guarantees.

I figure this one is a feel it out sort of game as both coaches tweak their systems for the post season. It’ll be interesting to see how Brindy approaches his lime matching. Aho’s unit struggled at times with Ottawa’s first line in the regular season. Does that mean he’ll put the Staal line in that matchup? Not a given, but it does seem likely. And how does Carolina match up on D? They shuffled the D pairs late in the year to get more balance, and you’d have to think that was a preview of coming attractions, but with Brindy you never know. So, this one may be a testy affair as both teams figure out what to try to exploit. Should be fun. This matchup offers both sides a lot of options.
 
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