Tweetmail No. 216: Sparks, Important Games & Penalties

Hey, it's been a while. Welcome back to Tweetmail, (usually) a weekly feature on CarolinaHurricanes.com in which I take your Twitter questions about the Carolina Hurricanes or other assorted topics and answer them in mailbag form. Hopefully the final product is insightful to some degree, and maybe we have some fun along the way.
Let's get to it.

Tweet from @Caniac1978: The team has been on fire in the new year, what do you think changed that led to it?
That's a great question, and it's one that has been posed to Hurricanes head coach Rod Brind'Amour time and time again since the turn of the calendar.
And the answer? Well, it's kind of complicated. There isn't one reason, one change, one magical potion that flipped a switch and turned the season around.
The reality is that the Canes didn't really change all that much. The message didn't change. The team's game didn't change. The results did, though.
Here are some things worth noting. Considered as a whole, this probably best explains why the Canes have been one of the league's best teams since Dec. 31.
Personnel: The recalls of Greg McKegg and Saku Maenalanen helped to stabilize the team's fourth line and give it an identity. Of course, there's also Nino Niederreiter, who has 19 points (9g, 10a) in 20 games since joining the Canes. He has been the perfect addition to the team's top line, the missing scoring ingredient. Plus, Sebastian Aho, especially in the absence of Jordan Staal, is proving night after night why he's one of the best young players in this league.
Shooting percentage: The Canes owned an abysmal 6.5 percent shooting percentage in their first 37 games of the season. That was bound to improve, and it has. The Canes have scored at an 11.7 percent clip since Dec. 31. Scoring more goals has obviously led to more wins.
Goaltending: The Canes' goaltending has been solid all season, but they've been able to rotate through a steady dose of Petr Mrazek and Curtis McElhinney in the new year.
Confidence & belief: Ultimately, the Canes took a win on New Year's Eve and turned it into two wins a few nights later. That turned into three, turned into four, turned into five, and suddenly the team had some life. More streaks - two three-game winning streaks and another five-game streak - followed, as did a confidence in the locker room.
"You want to be confident. A lot of our guys feel pretty good, and they should. They've worked really hard and put us in a good spot," Brind'Amour said earlier this week. "They believe in themselves and what they're doing. That's the No. 1 thing you want. They know when we weren't playing our best, and they know when we get to our game we have a chance to win. That belief factor is huge and has to continue."

Is it fair to say all of them?
It's a cliché, sure, but that's the honest answer. They're all very important.
But, if we were to parse out the games that are perhaps even more important than the important ones, the intra-divisional match-ups are chief amongst the rest. Giving points away to the opposition isn't ideal in any scenario, but if it were to happen, it'd be better against a Western Conference opponent like any of the next three: Winnipeg, Nashville and Colorado.
Points against Columbus, Pittsburgh and Washington are going to be crucial, especially considering how tight the standings are at this point in time. Avoid losses, obviously, and also avoid three-point games, if at all possible.
Related …

After Tuesday night's game in Boston, 16 games remain for the Hurricanes in the 2018-19 regular season, and because of their stellar play since New Year's Eve, they've earned themselves some wiggle room in terms of points needed in the last month of the season.
Now, every game is still critical, especially when you look ahead to later in the month when the Canes play almost exclusively within their own division and conference. Those are four-point swing games that could have massive implications on the final standings.
In the last edition of
Tweetmail on Feb. 13
, the Canes' playoff chances hovered somewhere around the 50 percent mark. That number is now in the mid-80s because of the points the team continues to bank. The cut line in the Eastern Conference may no longer be 95 points; it could be 96 or 97. For this mathematical exercise, let's aim for 97, considering Montreal, the team that currently occupies the second wild card spot in the East, is tracking for 96 points and change.
In order to get to 97 points, the Hurricanes need 18 points in their last 16 games. Some combination of 9-7-0 (you can shuffle some numbers to account for overtime losses if need be) gets the Canes to that mark. That's totally doable for a team that is 21-6-2 in its last 29 games.
What will be most interesting to track down the stretch is playoff positioning. Over their last 16 games, the Canes play Columbus once, Montreal once, Pittsburgh twice and Washington twice. Those swing games could shake up which team falls where in the final standings, but the Canes have put themselves in a great position to end this playoff drought.

The question of greatest waiver claim in team history was posed in
Tweetmail No. 205
in late October, and my answer was Sergei Samsonov.
Five months later, McElhinney is giving him a run for that honor.
Samsonov still has longevity on his side; he signed a three-year deal with the Canes after being claimed on re-entry waivers and posting 32 points (14g, 18a) in 38 games, and he ultimately played in 191 regular-season games with the team.
By comparison, McElhinney's stint with the Canes is in its infancy, but his impact has been paramount. And to think - the Hurricanes were able to add him to their roster because Scott Darling was injured in the team's final preseason game, and the Maple Leafs placed him on waivers the next day. Talk about fortuitous timing.
McElhinney is 17-7-2 this season with a 2.31 goals-against average, a .921 save percentage and two shutouts. He's thrice strung together wins in four consecutive starts, and together with Mrazek, has helped to form one of the best one-two punches in net the Canes have had in years. In fact, McElhinney and Mrazek are the first goaltending duo in franchise history to each post 16 wins in a single season.
What happens down the road with McElhinney - both he and Mrazek are due to become unrestricted free agents this summer - remains to be seen, but this waiver wire pick-up is, without a doubt, one of the best in franchise history.

Micheal Ferland has been dealing with a nagging upper-body injury (it's not a concussion) that appeared to be reaggravated during his fight with David Backes on Tuesday night in Boston. Brind'Amour did not have any further update to pass along after the game, so that's all we know at this point in time.
The unfortunate part of all of this is that it began with a clean hit. Yes, the hit was heavy and devastating. Yes, Marcus Johansson unfortunately left the game injured. But it was shoulder-to-shoulder, as clean as they come. Boston's response was foolishly running around on the very next shift, followed by Backes challenging Ferland.
"Just because you hit a guy clean doesn't mean you have to fight every time," Justin Williams wisely pointed out after the game. "Ferland] certainly doesn't back down from anybody."
As far as outdoor game opponents go, Boston would be fun. I still think a divisional match-up or a tilt against a like-market team, such as Nashville or Tampa Bay, would go over well.
[Tweet from @caniac1979: Will 🐳 night return next season? Seems like a huge success and was so fun.#Tweetmail #TakeWarning
I'd say there's a good chance to see Whalers Night return next season.
Tweet from @toddamcgee: When a player receives a double-minor for high sticking, if a team scores a goal in the first two minutes, do they stay on the Power Play for the second penalty?
That's correct. A double-minor penalty is just that: two minor penalties served consecutively. So, if the team scores on the first two-minute power play, that one ends and the next one begins. Similarly, if a double-minor penalty is to be called and the team that's going to get the power play scores a goal on the delayed penalty sequence, the result is a two-minute power play since the first is washed out by the goal.
Tweet from @Chetoh1: Smooth or chunky peanut butter
Smooth by a mile.
\\*
Join me next week for more questions and more answers!
If you have a question you'd like answered or you'd like to state your case for crunchy peanut butter, you can find me on Twitter at
@MSmithCanes
, or you can
drop me an email
.