RALEIGH, N.C. – After returning to Raleigh just over a week ago, and following a set of back-to-back road losses to the Minnesota Wild and Colorado Avalanche, Justin Peters earned his chance to help put the Carolina Hurricanes back on the winning track.
After coming into the game to relieve injured starting goaltender Cam Ward against Minnesota, Peters and the Hurricanes unfortunately could not put together enough defense or offense to topple the Wild or the Avalanche the next night.
The veteran backup was ready for the challenge as he and his team would prepare for their next three games, two of which would come against rival Metropolitan division opponents.
With Carolina sitting in second place at the time, there was no better opportunity to make an impression for Peters – to be ‘that guy’.
“I’m excited about the opportunity,” Peters said after practice the day before facing the Pittsburgh Penguins.
“Trying to get back on track here and excited about tomorrow’s game.”
When asked what he thought he could bring to the Hurricanes in helping to lead the charge onto the ice while Ward healed on the IR, Peters pointed out, “I have a lot more experience.”
“I gained a lot of experience last year. Obviously, it’s unfortunate the injuries to guys, but that brings opportunities to someone else. For myself, I’m just kinda’ calling on my past experiences and just tryin’ to battle back there to give the boys a chance to win each night.”
Continuing to probe what he felt was most important for him and the Hurricanes to do in order to be successful during the team’s next stretch of games, he noted similarities of his experience starting games with the Charlotte Checkers in the American Hockey League (AHL).
Even though he hadn’t started a game in the NHL since the final game of the 2012-2013 season on Apr. 27 against the Pittsburgh Penguins, Peters had one win as a starter under his belt with Charlotte earlier this year.
The biggest similarity is the trust factor,” Peters said of playing in both the NHL and AHL.
“You really gotta’ have the trust in each other. You gotta’ trust that you’re gonna’ do your job, you gotta’ trust that the defenseman’s gonna’ do his job, forwards’ gonna’ do their job. That’s the big thing, to build that trust within your team and if you can just focus on doing your job, and you believe that your partner, your defenseman, the forward, wingers, everyone’s gonna’ do their job, you’re gonna’ have a lot more success.”
Talking specifically of what that meant in relation to making stops in the defensive end of the ice, Peters elaborated.
“The defenseman trusts and gives me the shooter,” Peters continued.
“He trusts that I’m gonna’ make that save. I trust that he’s gonna’ take that back door away, or I trust that he’s gonna’ play the two-on-one – he trusts me and gives me the shooter in certain scenarios – just bein’ on that same page that we read off each other and build that trust with each other. So when it comes into a game, it just becomes second nature.”
Not knowing that the next three games would see him and Carolina extend their losing streak to five games while heading into a five-game home stand, Peters pointed out back then what he felt the team’s recipe for success would be.
“As a group in here, we’ve made some adjustments throughout our whole game,” Peters said.
“We’ve got that belief in one another and we have that relationship in the locker room to be able to talk to each other, do video with each other, as a group so that we’re all workin’ as a unit in the D-zone and the offensive zone.”
Those were words from just over a week ago.
Now, after losing three more games by scores of 3-1 (Pittsburgh Penguins), 3-0 (Tampa Bay Lightning), and 5-1 (New York Rangers), Peters is 0-5 and has many wondering if he is ‘that guy’.
Obviously the numbers don’t support him as he’s given up 11 goals while trying to defend a team that’s scored only two goals in front of him.
A loss is a loss with no excuses.
After each game, Peters has not hidden from the spotlight, standing front and center, ready to answer the media’s questions about the soft goals he let in as well as the impressive saves he made to keep the Hurricanes in the game as best he could.
Peters’ words from a week ago still ring true of what head coach Kirk Muller has tried to instill in this team from the start of the season.
“This year there has been a lot of accountability on defense; playing the proper way,” Peters said.
“Holding each other accountable and I think you can tell by it on the ice.”
While Peters should now prepare to begin answering questions about being whether he is still capable of getting the job done – a thought in many peoples’ minds – there are other players in the Carolina dressing room who haven’t taken such a proactive approach.
They haven’t stepped up to be accountable themselves and to take some pressure off the keeper who for now, is still ‘that guy’.
Believe it or not, it might actually help all of them in the long run.
Otherwise, this team, similar to last season, may once again begin to trust less, lose more, and become the fragile group that Muller recently described it as becoming.