The Carolina Hurricanes fell to the Minnesota Wild 5-2 Sunday evening at PNC Arena.
It was a tough game for Carolina to drop, especially with the fact that they outshot Minnesota 42-19 over the course of the evening.
Here are my three takeaways from the game:
Mental Errors
Rod Brind'Amour said it best:
"It's the NHL. It can't happen."
The Hurricanes battled for every goal they got Sunday, but a few critical mistakes threw all that effort out the window.
After Michael Bunting tied the game up 2-2 in the third period, Brind'Amour rolled the fourth line out and Brendan Lemieux proceeded to turn the puck over twice within a single shift leading to Minnesota's eventual game-winner just 1:15 after the tying score.
Even before Lemieux's gaffes though, Dmitry Orlov was responsible for giving up a late goal in the first period after he lost Kirill Kaprizov in front of his own net.
There was also Bunting himself taking a bad penalty while his team was on the power play that eventually led to the Wild's second goal.
Mistakes will happen, but the Canes can't let those mistakes happen in critical moments one after the other. Especially with the way the team controlled play overall Sunday.
Even-Strength Scoring
Finishing was hard to find Sunday.
But that lack of finish is starting to become an unwelcome trend for Carolina, specifically at 5v5.
Since December, the Hurricanes have only scored 49 5v5 goals which ranks 14th in the league.
However, they've scored 24 goals on the power play, which is a league best across that same time span.
We may actually be living in a world in which the Canes are power play merchants.
Part of the issue is a lack of scoring depth down the middle.
Jesperi Kotkaniemi, who I think has actually played solid hockey the last four to five games and hasn't been rewarded for it, has only a single goal in his last 24 games.
Jordan Staal has just a single goal in his last 15 games.
It's crazy that the Canes' second most productive center is Jack Drury, no knock to him, but that just can't happen.
The Hurricanes generate a ton, they need to start cashing in.
Perhaps part of that is finding the right blend of lines as Carolina has yet to find a consistent second line.
Whatever the case, they need more guys to start stepping up.
The Svechnikov Void
It was quite apparent that the power play missed Andrei Svechnikov.
The Canes went 0-for-4 Sunday evening despite putting 10 different shots on net. Scoring on just one of those opportunities could have been the difference in the game, but Carolina just couldn't buy one.
However, a certain Russian star could have probably made the difference.
Svechnikov has 14 power play points this season (5g, 9a) which means he's picked up at least one PPP nearly every other game.
The overall numbers don't lie in terms of Svech's impact either.
In games without Svechnikov, the power play scored on 20.63% of their chances, but with Svechnikov in the lineup, that went up to 30.77%.
Teuvo Teravainen is a great power play player, but he isn't the same shooting threat from the right circle that Svechnikov is (although to be fair, I'm not sure anyone else on the team is even close to him either).
So with Svechnikov out for at least a little longer, some additional tweaks may be needed.