The Canes were outplayed at 5v5, 5v4, 4v5 and whichever other configuration you can think of.
Sometimes teams come flying out the gate for the first game of the season, riding on adrenaline and the energy of the crowd and the moment.
Other times, it looks like it did tonight for the Carolina Hurricanes, who were flat all game long in a 4-1 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning.
"Our 5v5 play was pretty gross," said captain Jordan Staal. "A lot of turnovers, a lot of trying to mosey on through the neutral zone when there's nothing there. We weren't really ready to embrace the grind and go much it up down low in their end."
It's not like either team was particularly good either.
The night ended up turning into a back-and-forth slog that ended up looking more like two teams wrestling in mud rather than gliding on ice (although part of that I'm sure is also due to how poor the ice conditions were).
"I honestly didn't know what I was watching for most of that game because that was just uncharacteristic," said Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour. "We'll learn from this."
Teams need to be able to adapt to games that devolve like that, but the Canes were just trying to be "too fancy."
"It was really all the guys that have been here forever," Staal said on the biggest issue with the team. "It just seemed like they weren't really willing to just go play in their end and just grind it out. Get some hits and just muck it up a little bit. They were really, really fancy. With that ice and everything, it just wasn't that kind of game."
In total, the Canes were credited with 17 turnovers on the night, eight of which came from the top-six.
Outside of Andrei Svechnikov, who led the team with 12 shot attempts, five on net, the Canes' top two lines lacked any sort of oomph.
Sebastian Aho especially had a tough game, with three giveaways, a bad offensive-zone (and on the power play) penalty, and a 36% faceoff win percentage.
"We need more than a flash," Brind'Amour said on his top players. "It's gotta be more consistent play out of all those guys."
The only line that was good for Carolina was the Staal line.
The trio of Staal, Jordan Martinook and William Carrier had a 88.89 CF% with 16 5v5 shot attempts for and only two against.
They dominated the Lightning at even strength and were also the only line to score as a heavy forechecking shift led to Carrier connecting with Staal on the backdoor for a tap-in.
Outside of 5v5 play, the Hurricanes were also pretty bad on special teams.
The Canes gave up two power play goals — Brayden Point from the slot and a Nikita Kucherov one-timer from the top of the circle — on six attempts (which is way too many penalties to take against Tampa Bay) and went 0-for-4 on their own power play which managed only a meager one shot on goal in total.
"It was no good," Brind'Amour said on his power play. "You can go in with a game plan... and again, I give them credit. They did a nice job. We had a couple looks and didn't execute very well. That's really what the game came down to was special teams. Obviously they executed and did exactly what they wanted to do. We didn't execute on the penalty kill either, let's be clear. That was two gaffes that we just blew and you can't do that with a team like that."
The power play looked completely out of sync with new PP1 quarterback Shayne Gostisbehere unable to handle the puck at the line on multiple occasions and overall just a general inability for either unit to gain the offensive zone.
The Hurricanes were originally scheduled to play tomorrow night at Amalie Arena as part of a home-and-home series with the Lightning, but it was postponed due to the impact of Hurricane Milton.
"We're probably lucky that we're not playing them right now because we'd probably get the same thing, being honest with you," Brind'Amour said.
The Canes will have to sit on this loss for a few days as they won't be back in action until Tuesday when they host the New Jersey Devils.
"I hope to a man, including myself, that we'll be better," Staal said. "That's the game, right? It's always about the next day, the next moment, but obviously we have to learn from how flat we were today and the mistakes we made. We'll have to get better and carry it to the next one."
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