Hurricanes
Gold & Hintz: Key to Hurricanes' victory in Game 7, no concern for Raanta
99.9 The Fan host Adam Gold joins Kacy Hintz on WRAL Sports Xtra for a preview of the Hurricanes' Game 7 second round playoff game against the Rangers.
Welcome back in boy, do we've got ourselves a huge winner go home do or die? Game seven tomorrow night between the hurricanes and the rangers. So to get you all set for that game. Let's bring in our canes insider and 99 9. The fans host adam gold adam. Thank you so much for hopping on tonight now before we can look ahead to game seven. I quickly, I just want to put games six to bed here. And one of those things was antti Raanta Boy. If you paid any attention to social media, everyone was sounding the sirens there. He gets pulled after letting in three goals and 13 shots, but he hasn't had a bad game yet. This postseason panic or no panic, no panic, Antti Raanta I mean if you don't have confidence in Antti Raanta then you were just waiting for something to happen. Uh There's no way the hurricanes could have gotten better goaltending from Freddie Andersen than they've gotten from antti Raanta so far in the playoffs. No, no doubt he'll start game seven. It was the first game they lost in the post season because the goaltending wasn't good enough for the very first one. Uh and I'm sure auntie wants the first two goals back. The second goal I thought was actually a little worse than the first, but look, they generated more than enough chances to win that game more than enough, which is the second time in new york they've done that and it just hasn't worked out. So on Toronto will be in it and hopefully everything will be okay. Speaking of okay, you know what the guys seem to think it's okay, we've got to stop dwelling Vincent Trocheck said on this home and away thing there. Oh and six Away from PNC Arena seven and o at home adam. What do you make of this? I really, it's it's a it's weird right? I actually think Caroline has been good enough to win. I think they were good enough to win games three and four in boston, they weren't good in game six, they were good enough to win game three. I know it sounds weird but I think they were good enough to win game four and game six in New York. And last I checked PNC arena is in Raleigh and it's Carolina's home ice. So I mean, I can't feel bad about it. Um I would it would be great to win a game on the road, probably going to have to at some point and hopefully they'll get an opportunity to do that. But in order to do that, got to hold serve And in order to do that, they've got to play their game, we saw in game five, it was just an absolute master class of that four checking that is Carolina's game Adam when you look at tomorrow night's even though they're on home ice, what is the one big thing they've got to do. Well, I mean it's cliche at this point, but stay out of the penalty box. Game seven against boston, they stayed out of the penalty box for the most part. Game five against the rangers, they stayed out of the penalty box. The only real egregious mistake was an Ian cole crosscheck uh to Jacob Trouba after Trouba missed checking Ian cole, I didn't really get get that whole thing. So if they can avoid taking penalties, the rangers power play has been on fire. Carolina's penalty kill hasn't been as good for the most part. So uh fan of the penalty box I think they'll be okay. I mean, I can just say that uh fewer than three penalties, I think Carolina wins the game Alright. You know something I've learned since being here is Rod Burnham or doesn't like to make very many drastic changes last night he moved Nino Niederreiter down that actually kind of worked Vincent Trocheck I think scored on that goal once he was moved. But you know, you don't see very many lineup changes. If there was going to be maybe one big change you would make, what would that be? Well, I would reunite the old fourth line of Derek Stepan in the middle with um Stephen Lawrence on the left and Jordan martin look on the right and make a real fourth line energy line type thing right now Caroline has got good players on the fourth line, Miss Barry kokanee Emmy and max domi with in this case Jordan martin took but they're not getting out of it, what they need to get out of it and that's Energy and just a heavy four check and all of that. Uh and to have high caliber players on their like coca, Niemi and Domi, it hasn't, it hasn't created offense. So if you're not getting offense at least you can get the checking out of it. And also there's no obligation to play that line a ton like I don't believe you'll see the fourth, the third pair of Brendan smith and Ian cole which I believe will play and the fourth line. I don't think you'll see either of those five players, Any of those five players play a lot, it's gonna be a steady diet of the top foreign defense and it's gonna be a steady diet of the top nine. And I think you'll see stall Niederreiter and foss reunited. Rod just tried to create some offense by moving Niederreiter up um and he moves, I don't even know if it's up, he moves Veshnyakov to the stall foss lines. So but I think you're gonna see a heavy concentration of the top 13 players Adam, I love that idea. I think you know maybe throwing some of the big bodies around. It would be a good idea here. Game seven winner go home, I hope that we're not wrapping up this season. Next sunday. I hope we're talking about a whole new fresh series Adam gold, thank you so much appreciate it. You got it. We'll talk to you next sunday. How about that? Sounds good.