By Brian LeBlanc
NCSportsTalk.com - Puck Drops
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This has to be the last thing the Hurricanes wanted to see. Fresh off blowing leads on consecutive nights by giving up a total of ten goals in two third periods, in march the Washington Capitals, who have only accomplished a second-place position in the Eastern Conference and top spot in the Southeast Division this season. To make it more stark, the Caps have as many wins (15) as the Canes have points.
Yikes.
If nothing else, expectations are pretty low around the RBC Center tonight. With a four-day layoff upcoming, the Canes feel the sword of upper management dangling over their head, and it's possible the team could look significantly different by Saturday when they take the ice again. There's no telling what might happen tomorrow and beyond, but the Canes will have to bring their A-game tonight to have a chance against a team that has legitimate Stanley Cup aspirations. And that assumes a 60-minute A-game, which is no guarantee after what we've seen the last two games.
Joni Pitkanen returns to the lineup tonight. We'll see if that makes a difference, as the Canes folded like a house of cards after he left the ice against Atlanta on Friday. Michael Leighton will get the start, and Cam Ward is still targeting a Saturday return after his leg laceration.
Here we go...
:35 1st: Didn't take long for the Canes to get a few good chances on Caps goalie Jose Theodore. Joni Pitkanen did one of his patented riverboat-gambler moves to knife his way through the Washington defense, and his pass for Tuomo Ruutu at the front of the net was pokechecked away by the goaltender a split second before Ruutu could get his stick on it to tap it home.
2:59 1st: Leave it to Brandon Sutter to draw a penalty and get a shot off while being hooked. That's a move you don't expect to see every day.
3:30 1st: And leave it to Joe Corvo to do something we fully expect Joe Corvo to do...backhand the puck right onto Mike Green's stick despite having a nearly-open net to shoot at.
4:35 1st: Canes lead 1-0; Corvo 4 (Ruutu, Staal) Yet again proving why they make millions while I am but a lowly reporter, Corvo atones for his mistake by jumping on a rebound of a Tuomo Ruutu tip at the front of the net, then drawing Theodore down and backhanding a shot high to put the Canes on the board first.
5:09 1st: No shock here. Seconds after putting the Canes on the board, Corvo is cut by the skate of Karl Alzner in front of the Canes' bench and heads to the locker room in very obvious pain. It just figures, doesn't it?
6:11 1st: Caps tie the game; Backstrom 5 (Ovechkin, Giroux) You did see this coming, no? Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom traded places with where we normally expect them, Ovechkin feeding a sweet pass to the front of the net that Backstrom tipped home through Leighton's legs.
12:05 1st: Alex Ovechkin's night is done. As Tim Gleason tried to clear the puck out of his own zone, Ovechkin caught him with a knee-on-knee hit that took both of Gleason's knees out from under him. That is the definition of a dirty hit, but in a bit of karmic justice it was Ovechkin who got the worst of it. Gleason was able to skate off (and returned to the bench a few minutes later), but Ovechkin stayed down on the ice and couldn't put any weight on his right leg. His night would have been done anyway after receiving a game misconduct, but that looked like a bad, bad injury at first glance.
17:05 1st: Five minutes and no power play goals. This team's ineptitude on the power play is stunning.
17:20 1st: Caps lead 2-1; Fehr 7 (Backstrom) This is all too predictable, isn't it? Fifteen seconds after a five-minute power play that the Canes fail to score on, Eric Fehr converts a two-on-one with Backstrom as Michael Leighton is hung out to dry again.
End 1st: Shots in the period were 16-6 Hurricanes. The score was 2-1 Capitals. That five minute power play is going to be a defining moment one way or the other, and right now "the other" looks like the better bet. We'll see if the Canes can take advantage of Ovechkin's night ending halfway through the first period.
3:20 2nd: The Canes again have carried the play to start the period, and the best chance of the period so far was a centering pass from Sutter to Patrick Dwyer that Dwyer couldn't quite get a handle on. Theodore has been big, but the Canes are doing everything they can to tie the game.
4:20 2nd: Jussi Jokinen waited too long and couldn't convert a cross-ice pass. Theodore made a circus save, but had Jokinen fired a one-timer we'd be tied right now.
5:50 2nd: The Canes have a 17-second two-man advantage. The Caps are begging them to tie this game.
6:15 2nd: ...and Whitney his the outside of the post on a one-timer. All you can do is shake your head sometimes.
6:32 2nd: Whitney hits his second post in seventeen seconds. Wow.
12:00 2nd: It's been one of those nights in the offensive zone. Jussi Jokinen had about four chances to get a puck on his stick for a beautiful scoring chance, but it was eithe rout of his reach or jumping around just enough to keep him from following through on the shot. It has to be one of the more frustrating nights for the Canes, because the effort has been there since the opening faceoff.
14:53 2nd: Caps lead 3-1; Backstrom 6 (Fehr) Michael Leighton should get an assist on this goal. For some bizarre reason he thought it would be a good idea to slide well outside his crease with Nicklas Backstrom parked in the near circle with full control of the puck. Backstrom couldn't believe his luck when he spun around and found a gaping net staring him in the face, and he backhanded the puck into the empty cage to give the Caps a two-goal lead.
End 2nd: The game settled down into a rhythm late in the period with not much going on either way. However, the Caps will begin the 3rd period with a lengthy 5-on-3 as Tom Kostopoulos and Andrew Alberts both earned penalties late. Shots were 12-11 Canes in the period, and they led 28-17 overall despite losing by two goals.
2:10 3rd: The good news is the Canes didn't give up a goal on the two-man disadvantage. The bad news is that they couldn't take advantage of a short power play and remain down by two.
3:03 3rd: And now the scoreboard is frozen. This game just keeps getting weirder.
6:35 3rd: Tim Gleason takes a questionable boarding penalty to put the Caps back on the power play, and Paul Maurice goes absolutely ballistic. Doesn't take a professional lip-reader to see that Maurice was using words he wouldn't like his kids to hear.
9:31 3rd: Cole and Jokinen on a two-on-one...and Cole's pass underleads Jokinen and goes behind him. Been that kind of night at the office for the Canes.
11:51 3rd: Theodore is the reason his team has a two-goal lead. Never mind Backstrom's three point night, Theodore has been a rock in goal tonight and the Canes haven't cracked him when it's mattered.
13:15 3rd: Brendan Morrison's point shot on a power play goes off the far post. That's Caps 3, Canes 1, Post 3, if you're scoring at home -- and yes, all three shots that hit the post went off the same one at the same end of the rink.
14:25 3rd: A scrum in front of Leighton results in a skirmish between Staal and Tyler Sloan, who both get roughing penalties, but Gleason earns a misconduct for being the third man in and now the Canes are officially down to four defensemen.
17:21 3rd: Leighton has been every bit Theodore's peer with the exception of the miscue on the Backstrom goal. It's been a heck of a goaltending duel tonight.
19:44 3rd: Canes pull to 3-2; Cullen 7 (Jokinen, Staal) Too little too late for the Canes, but they pull to within one on a Cullen shot from fifteen feet out in the slot off a nice feed from Jussi Jokinen behind the net.
End 3rd: Shots in the third were 16-9 Capitals, pulling to within four of the Canes who outshot the Caps 37-33 in the game.
Postgame: The frustrating thing right now for the Canes is that, as Paul Maurice said, they're 80% there. The effort is coming around, the power play struck for the first time in 21 chances, and the Canes don't look nearly as clueless as they did during their 14-game winless streak. That said, the time for moral victories has long since passed, and the Canes simply need points no matter how they get them. Maurice said that Corvo's injury is serious, and they're prepared for a significant amount of time without their top ice-time defenseman. Par for the course the way this season has gone, no?
Click for audio from Brandon Sutter, Michael Leighton and Matt Cullen. Maurice's press conference is attached.
We'll be back Saturday afternoon as the Canes entertain the Vancouver Canucks for the only time this season. Until then, expect some news as the Canes have four days off, but what kind of news is anyone's guess. Things could be completely different by Saturday, or they could be exactly the same, and we'll be here to cover it either way.
Monday, November 30, 2009
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