Canes rounding out game as playoffs near

By Lethbridge Herald on March 4, 2025.

By Justin Seward

Lethbridge Herald

The Lethbridge Hurricanes are in the home stretch of the regular season with seven games to go and know there are many areas of their game to work on as they near the playoffs.

The Canes want more consistency in their identity.

“We’ve always been a hard team to play against,” said Ryan Aasman, Canes assistant coach.

 “That’s what we’ve been known for is being a detailed, hard team to play against and I think at moments we get away from that when we’re chasing the game, or the game’s tied, or it’s not going the way that we want (it) to. More so this month is stick to our identity more consistently so we can have more 60-minute efforts.”

Aasman talked about how the coaching staff is relaying the playoff mindset.

“That’ll be the plan for us as a staff is taking care of little issues as they creep up and make sure we’re fixing them,” said Aasman.

“In terms of the guys in the room, we have so many pro guys in there and we have an older group. I’m not too worried how the mindset is going into playoffs.”

Areas in the team’s five-on-five play is what they will look to rounding out in the later stages of the regular season.

“I think it’s forechecks and making sure our d-zone coverage is sound but also finding ways to create off the rush and possess O-Zone time,” said Aasman.

The Canes look to work on things like ensuring they’re on the right side of pucks, reloading while being away from the puck and taking away space from good-skating teams

“I think those are all little details that we need to be dialled in on because they’re competitive advantages,” said Aasman.

Defenceman Logan McCutcheon thinks the team’s fore check and defensive play have been strong heading into the home stretch.

“We haven’t given up much as a d-core and as a forward group, so I think we just need to keep building on those things,” said McCutcheon.

The Canes are in a battle for positioning in the standings with Medicine Hat and Calgary who are ahead of them in the division.

“Standings are tight,” said McCutcheon.

“So (we) can’t really afford to waste any games. So we just gotta be prepared every night and try and get two points as often as we can.”

Forward Shane Smith spoke about the message he would give to his teammates to keep the intensity up in these last seven games before playoffs.

“The end of the season’s huge,” said Smith.

“Everybody’s looking forward to playoffs but the standings are so tight and every game is a must win.”

A lot of the talk around the team has been about playoffs.

“You gotta kind of take it one game at a time and not look too much into playoffs right now,” said Smith.

“But kind of just fine tune our game to have that playoff style throughout the rest of the regular season.”