By Brian LeBlanc
NCSportsTalk.com - Puck Drops
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My, how things have changed since the last time we saw the Carolina Hurricanes on home ice.
The Canes bring a six-game winning streak into tonight's matchup with the Ottawa Senators, but more importantly they beat Toronto 4-1 on Tuesday night. Since then, though, the Canes have shipped out a good number of familiar faces. The trade deadline Wednesday saw the Canes deal Joe Corvo, Aaron Ward, Scott Walker, Stephane Yelle and Andrew Alberts, requiring the recall of Jay Harrison and Zach Boychuk from Albany and allowing Brian Pothier, acquired from Washington in the Corvo deal, to make his Canes debut tonight.
Of course, before the Olympics, the Canes made a deal with these same Senators, trading Matt Cullen to Ottawa and receiving Alexandre Picard, who will make his first appearance with the Canes at the RBC Center tonight. Manny Legace will be in net tonight, but Paul Maurice said this morning that Cam Ward's back has calmed down and the team expects him to return to the lineup before the end of the season.
Can the new-look Canes build on their season-high winning streak? We're about to find out..
1:30 1st: A good early chance for Patrick Dwyer goes high over the Sens' net, but that's to be expected considering the lines are barely recognizable to everyone in the building.
5:18 1st: Canes lead 1-0; Kostopoulos 6 (unassisted) A nice piece of hustling behind the net earns Kostopoulos the first goal of the game. Kostopoulos didn't take the puck directly off Pascal Leclaire's stick, but he forced Leclaire into turning it over along the far boards, and while Leclaire stopped Kostopoulos' first shot he couldn't handle the rebound and Kostopoulos knocked it in for a 1-0 lead.
6:23 1st: Canes lead 2-0; Brind'Amour 6 (Boychuk, Carson) Carson gets an assist for firing the puck into the zone off a faceoff, which shows you how broken this play was. Brind'Amour was in the right place to pick up a loose puck in the near circle, and he danced around a defender to fire a shot for which Leclaire again couldn't pick up the rebound. Cory Clouston had seen enough, and pulled Leclaire for Brian Elliott to loud cheers from the RBC faithful.
11:20 1st: Manny Legace gets into the game with two big saves on backdoor plays during a Sens' power play, and the crowd keeps getting louder. At this point the Canes can't do any wrong in the fans' eyes, and the team is all over the place to keep the pressure on.
17:30 1st: Alexandre Picard denies former teammate Jason Spezza with a well-timed kick save in front of Legace. Spezza did a heck of a job to dangle the puck around Picard, but before Spezza could get a shot off the puck was redirected to the corner.
18:50 1st: Staal skates to the bench with an injury of some sort. Maybe took a puck to the midsection? Not sure, but he's bent over in pain on the bench.
End 1st: After the goaltending change you could really sense a shift in momentum toward the Sens, and the Canes were chasing their tails for long portions of the second half of the period. They're lucky to be up by two; shots in the period were even at 9.
5:00 2nd: It took a little while for the Canes' offense to heat up as the Sens carried the play for most of the first five minutes, but they broke out in a big way with a fantastic shift from the Whitney-Staal-Jokinen line that would have had a goal if not for an overpass by Whitney on a 3-on-2.
6:30 2nd: Huge save on Sergei Samsonov by Brian Elliott, who flashed the glove as Samsonov skated in alone with two teammates engaged with Senators defensemen in the low slot. Samsonov outwaited Elliott and drew him down to the ice, but Elliott snared Samsonov's shot at the last second and earned a stoppage instead of giving up a three-goal lead.
12:45 2nd: Tom Kostopoulos came within gn inch of his second of the night on a redirection of a Jay Harrison point shot. Say what you will about the wisdom of playing Zach Boychuk with Kostopoulos and Brind'Amour, but that combination has been by far the best line on the ice for either team, and no other line is even in the discussion.
15:50 2nd: Canes lead 3-0; LaRose 5 (Staal, Ruutu) Chad LaRose was the beneficiary of some lucky timing on a line change, finding himself on the ice with Eric Staal and Tuomo Ruutu and putting the Canes up by three. Some hard work along the boards by Ruutu freed the puck up for LaRose to take a shot that was saved by Elliott, and Eric Staal's rebound chance bounced off Elliott and right to LaRose, who fired it home into the empty cage.
End 2nd: After a rough start to the period, the Canes slowly took over and have earned their three goal lead. Only three power plays so far, and none of them have resulted in anything on the scoreboard. Shots in the second were 10-7 Canes, who lead overall 19-16.
4:15 3rd: A bad turnover in front of Elliott leads to a golden chance for Whitney, who for some reason passed -- again -- from five feet and had his pass picked off by Erik Karlsson in front of the net. That's twice tonight that Whitney passed up a good chance for a goal by making one too many passes.
9:55 3rd: Legace has earned his money in this period. He's been on top of his crease and is making the puck look like it's approximately the size of a beach ball. For a guy who hasn't played in nearly a month, it's good to see.
11:55 3rd: Sens pull to 3-1; Cullen 13 (Alfredsson, Fisher) So much for the sutout. The Canes will remain without a bagel on the season after Matt Cullen scores what can only be described as a Matt Cullen goal: draw a hooking penalty behind the net, wrap around the far post, stuff it in. Seems like we've seen that move a million times.
16:30 3rd: The Sens are just owning the play now. The Canes are really back on their heels, and they're quite lucky to have the luxury of a two-goal cushion.
18:12 3rd: Canes lead 4-1; Sutter 16 (unassisted) (en) The Canes ice it away with an empty-netter from the red line that just barely trickled into the net inside the near post courtesy of Brandon Sutter, who has matched his jersey number with 16 goals on the season and continues to defy all expectations.
End 3rd: Not a banner third for the Canes, as they were outshot 9-3 in the period and the Sens led overall 26-21. If not for a pair of early defensive breakdowns this would have been a nailbiter, but the Canes got the breaks to go their way and skated off 2-0 since the Olympics -- and don't look now, but they've won seven in a row, their longest streak of the season.
Postgame: Eric Staal talked at length about the Olympics, the experience of going through a trade deadline as a seller, and plenty of other things as well. Zach Boychuk is still the wide-eyed rookie who couldn't believe his good fortune playing on a line with Rod Brind'Amour. Yes, needless to say, it's a happy time in the home locker room.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the arena, Matt Cullen was disappointed that his team lost tonight, but you could tell in talking to him that he's excited to be in a situation where he can again go deep into the playoffs. Cullen moved his family back to Minnesota during the break, and he said that the break actually came at a fortuitous time for him; he had plenty of time to get his affairs in order without having to wear multiple hats at the same time.
Click for audio from Staal, Boychuk, Rod Brind'Amour and, from the other locker room, Cullen. Paul Maurice's press conference is attached.
The Canes hit the road for a quick back-to-back this weekend, as they face Florida on Saturday and Atlanta on Sunday. The next time we'll see them here is next Thursday, when the Pittsburgh Penguins come to town for the final time this season. In the meantime, there's a high likelihood of another Canes Country Call-In next week, so stay tuned and we'll keep you updated on a date and time.
Friday, March 5, 2010
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