By Brian LeBlanc
NCSportsTalk.com - Puck Drops
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Pretend for a second that the Hurricanes aren't 2-7-3 on the season. Pretend they haven't lost eight in a row. Pretend they're the team that, on paper, some hack writer projected for 100 points. Do you think there'd be more buzz about one of the best teams in the West coming to town for the only time this season? I sure do.
OK, back to reality. It's going to be a long day in the saddle, more than likely, but we'll be here to cover it all.
It's Ray Whitney Day here, as the Wizard is honored for playing 1,000 games in the NHL with the traditional silver stick (in a game against the team that drafted him, conveniently). The Canes also welcome Erik Cole and Tuomo Ruutu back to the lineup, and some lineup juggling has ensued. To no one's surprise, the two short straws were drawn by Tim Conboy and Stephane Yelle, who will have seats waiting for them in the press box.
And who's centering the fourth line? Yep...Brandon Sutter. I'll be interested to see how many minutes he plays, given Paul Maurice's track record with fourth line players.
Last year, the Canes went into a similar hopeless-looking situation in San Jose and Michael Leighton pulled out a shootout win that no one saw coming. Can history repeat itself today? We'll find out...
1:06 1st: The game starts with a familiar sight: a Canes player in the penalty box. Pitkanen for holding just over a minute into the game, and the Canes' penalty killers will get a stern test against the Sharks' sixth-ranked power play, bolstered by the addition of noted Canes-killer Dany Heatley in the offseason.
4:57 1st: Weird play behind the Canes' net. Pitkanen collected the puck and held it to start the breakout, directing traffic with his stick, but Aaron Ward wouldn't move from his man along the far wall. Pitkanen, clearly frustrated with Ward's unwillingness to move, ended up firing the puck around the boards and it took a bounce into the slot, where the Sharks' Logan Couture fired a shot high over Cam Ward. Bizarre.
7:15 1st: The Sharks' Jed Ortmeyer beats Ward, but not the far post. Still scoreless by an inch or two.
9:45 1st: Man of the hour Whitney with a steal and a partial breakaway from the blue line in, but his shot is kicked out by Sharks goalie Evgeni Nabokov and the game remains scoreless. Believe it or not, that's the Canes' first shot of the game.
11:27 1st: The Sharks are buzzing early, and they've had a ton of pressure on the Canes' net. Fortunately for the Canes, none of those chances have hit paydirt, but the Canes are very obviously still struggling with their confidence.
13:14 1st: Robbery by Nabokov's glove on Jussi Jokinen, who sprinted in down the left wing on a power play and fired a tricky wrister that could have easily handcuffed the Sharks' goaltender.
14:06 1st: So close...but no dice. A harmless-looking wrister from Whitney on the far boards bounced off Nabokov's pads and right to Eric Staal, who had a wide open net but Nabokov somehow came across to deny the shot, then got lucky as the puck trickled behind him and was covered by a pile of about six players before it entered the net. The power play has helped the Canes to even the shot board at 7, after being down 6-0 at one point.
17:35 1st: Nabokov is leaving some juicy rebounds in front of his net, and the Canes are doing a good job of jumping on them. No luck yet, but they at least look like they have a clue in the offensive zone today, which sure couldn't be said after the last two games.
End 1st: I suppose you could consider it a minor accomplishment that the Canes held the Sharks off the board in the first period, because they were down 3-0 yesterday at this point. Shots in the period were 9-8 Sharks, but all but two of those shots came before the midway point of the period. The Canes sure looked more impressive during and after the power play.
2:48 2nd: Canes lead 1-0; Sutter 2 (Kostopoulos, LaRose) Something tells me that Brandon Sutter has seen the last of Albany for a while. He has two in as many games, the second putting the Canes on the board first early in the second on a sharp wrister that handcuffed Nabokov and hit the back of the net over his glove.
4:05 2nd: Sharks tie the game; Huskins 1 (unassisted) So much for that. Kent Huskins, a third-pair defenseman, ties the game on a wraparound that Cam Ward should have stopped. Instead, Ward left just enough daylight for the puck to sneak into the net.
5:27 2nd: Sharks take a 2-1 lead; Staubitz 2 (Shelley, Couture) And if you've been following the Canes thus far this season, you know that the second goal was going to come in short succession. Brad Staubitz, come on down. This one Ward had little chance on; a rebound bounced out to him and he shot the puck past Ward while both he and the puck were in midair. You don't see that every day from fourth liners, but the way this year has gone...
8:40 2nd: Staal with the puck in his wheelhouse, at the top of the near circle...and his shot caroms off Whitney's leg into the corner. That's an appropriate outcome, eh?
10:04 2nd: Sometimes it takes a while for cross-conference games to get physical, but we just had our first good scrum of the game after Douglas Murray nailed Tuomo Ruutu along the near boards. Ruutu got his revenge when he shoved Murray into the boards, but it didn't stop a shoving match from breaking out after Nabokov covered the puck a few seconds later.
10:55 2nd: One too many passes prevented a good scoring chance. Whitney tried to feed Cole on a 2-on-1, but the two players were too tight into the San Jose net and the pass went behind Cole. The Canes didn't get a shot off, unsurprisingly.
14:52 2nd: Sharks lead 3-1; Murray 1 (Thornton, Clowe) The Sharks had an extended shift in the Carolina zone, and they made the Canes pay. Joe Thornton parked behind the net and fed Murray who pinched down from the point and snuck the puck through Ward's legs out of a big group of players from both teams in front of the net. Sounds like a broken record, doesn't it?
18:26 2nd: On a power play, the Canes' best chance since the goal ends in Ruutu hitting the near-side post with Nabokov out of position. They don't come much more gift-wrapped than that, but given how the Canes are playing, even gifts aren't worth much.
End 2nd: Some scattered boos in the stands as the period ends, to no one's surprise. Shots in the period were 11-5 Sharks, who led overall 20-13. Not a real confidence-inspiring showing for the home team...again.
:52 3rd: Here's something you can hang your hat on: the Canes, through two periods, took only four minutes in penalties, their lowest total through two so far this year. I mean, at this point, you need some sort of positive statistic, no?
2:45 3rd: The Canes still can't dent Nabokov, even when he comes way out of position and leaves a wide-open net. Joni Pitkanen was the unlucky party on a Canes power play, firing wide with Nabokov out of position.
3:10 3rd: And just after the power play expires, Chad LaRose finally beats Nabokov...but he can't beat the post. The iron shot is the Canes' second of the night.
4:20 3rd: Sharks lead 4-1; Vlasic 2 (Marleau, Blake) The few seconds immediately preceding the goal that gave the Sharks a 4-1 lead are a case study in what's gone wrong for the Canes this year. Erik Cole played the puck around a Sharks defender in front of the Sharks bench, skated in on a two-on-one and fed Ray Whitney who couldn't beat Nabokov even with the goaltender moving. Meanwhile, the Canes were slow getting back after the play, and Rob Blake fed Patrick Marleau who started a 2-on-2 with defenseman Marc-Edouard Vlasic. Vlasic got behind the Canes' Jay Harrison and tipped the puck home off a cross-slot pass from Marleau. That, friends, is the Canes' season to this point in a nutshell.
7:35 3rd: By the way, Eric Staal didn't come out of the locker room for the third period. At this point, about all you can do is shake your head and chuckle.
9:09 3rd: Scoring changes: the primary assist on the Hurricanes' goal has been changed to Harrison from Kostopoulos, and there have been two assists awarded on Huskins' goal a minute later, to Jason Demers and Ryane Clowe.
11:12 3rd: Sharks take a 5-1 lead; Marleau 11 (Thornton, Heatley) (pp) You had to figure the Sharks would find a way to burn the Canes at least once on the power play. That they did, on a tic-tac-toe passing play started by Dany Heatley along the far boards. Heatley passed acorss the crease to Joe Thornton, who barely tipped the puck to Marleau on the near circle. Marleau didn't miss, rifling home the one-timer high over Ward's glove. No mistake there.
18:15 3rd: At least there's some pressure from the Sutter line, the only line that's done anything today. Good shots from Sutter and LaRose, but nothing doing.
End 3rd: After every game, you ask if this is rock bottom. It sure has to be close at hand at this point, being outscored 16-4 in two straight games while giving little fight to any of the three opponents. This is a nightmare scenario now, and the Canes still have few answers. Shots in the third were 13-5 Hurricanes, who actually outshot the Sharks 26-25, but you can understand the boos that serenaded the Canes off the ice.
Postgame: More of the same from the Canes' locker room. No one can figure out what's going wrong, although Paul Maurice offered a possible explanation: poor goaltending and poor defensive coverage. By now, the locker room ritual isn't really offering any new or advanced insights into the state of the team, which speaks more to the head-scratching failure of the team to play consistently than it does anything else. Again, we wonder what will cause the Canes to snap out of this funk, when it will happen, and if it will come too late.
Click for audio from Ray Whitney and Rod Brind'Amour. Maurice's press conference is attached.
The Canes now head to Florida on Wednesday before a back-to-back next weekend, home to Toronto on Friday and at Columbus on Saturday. We'll be there for both of those games, including this year's first Live Blog Road Trip to Ohio next weekend. See you back here on Friday night.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
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