By Brian LeBlanc
NCSportsTalk.com - Puck Drops
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Last night, the Canes suffered the indignity of having a touchdown scored against them, falling 7-4 on the home ice of the Florida Panthers. Tonight, the two teams make the flight to Raleigh and face off again for their second meeting of the year.
To no one's surprise given his history, Paul Maurice did some line juggling during last night's game, moving Jeff Skinner off Eric Staal's wing and onto Tuomo Ruutu, while Sergei Samsonov went from the proverbial outhouse (the fourth line) to the penthouse (the first) and actually looked good in doing so. Cam Ward was beaten a little too often last night for his liking, but that was largely a function of a Swiss-cheese defense in front of him that surrendered 49 shots to the Panthers. Needless to say, giving up that many won't lead to good things, and the Canes need to lock it down a bit more tonight if they don't want to be swept.
Joni Pitkanen didn't play last night, won't play tonight and likely won't play on Tuesday when Edmonton comes to town, meaning Brett Carson will see action in his second game of the season tonight. Former Cane Cory Stillman suffered an upper-body injury last night and only played a few shifts, and he won't see action tonight either.
We're ready to go, and the good folks at the RBC hope the home team is ready too...
2:41 1st: Press box comment: "Well, this is already better than last night. It's still scoreless." Sadly, that's very true.
5:40 1st: That play was precisely why fans get so frustrated with Anton Babchuk. On a partial 2-on-1 from the blue line in, Eric Staal hit Babchuk as a trailer at the top of the slot. He was in perfect position for a one-timer, but he somehow thought it would be a good idea to pass the puck back to Staal, who was not expecting it at all. As a result, what should have been a goal (or, at the very least, a high-quality chance) turned into a harmless dump-in that the Panthers quickly cleared.
11:35 1st: This time last night there were already three goals on the board. Tonight? None, but we nearly had one after Scott Clemmensen misplayed the puck behind his own net but got back in time to kick Erik Cole's shot out to the far corner.
17:41 1st: Here's a shock: the Canes got a power play and proceeded to do nothing with it. In slightly better news, however, they're currently outshooting the Panthers 8-3.
End 1st: A late flurry led to the Canes' best chances of the period, but Clemmensen stood tall and didn't surrender the first goal of the night, leaving it scoreless after one. Shots were 9-4 Canes in the first period, meaning after taking 105 shots in the last two games the Panthers are on pace for precisely twelve tonight.
4:15 2nd: Not sure how this happened, but a shorthanded breakaway for Brandon Sutter was unsuccessful thanks to some, er, creative backchecking by Dmitry Kulikov that ended with Sutter being pulled down to the ice to the right of Clemmensen. Sounds like a penalty, if not a penalty shot, no? Nothing doing. Go figure.
5:09 2nd: A few seconds after the Florida power play expired, Brett Carson threw a heavy check on David Booth next to the Canes' bench. Hordichuk took exception and took a swing at Carson, which drew a response from everyone on the ice and ended with Brandon Sutter being clocked in the back of the head by Darcy Hordichuk. The only penalty, appropriately, went to Hordichuk.
7:51 2nd: Canes lead 1-0; Staal 6 (Samsonov, Skinner) (pp) A few seconds after Hordichuk went to the box, Mike Santorelli was whistled for hooking Sergei Samsonov behind the net, and with :18 left in the Hordichuk penalty Eric Staal made the Panthers pay. Some great movement and quick decisions in the zone got Staal open at the top of the slot, and Samsonov found him wide open for Staal to wire a shot from one knee high to Clemmensen's blocker side to get the Canes on the board first.
13:00 2nd: The newly-formed fourth line of Jokinen-Matsumoto-Kostopoulos has been relatively quiet tonight, but they nearly got on the board when Jokinen found Kostopoulos sneaking down through the near circle and just missed what would have been a tap-in goal. Like Wednesday night, the Canes are getting contributions from all four lines tonight, which is something that was sorely missing last night in Sunrise.
14:35 2nd: Another open-net chance as the puck pinballed off Clemmensen's pad and slowly toward the vacated net, but Dennis Wideman got back just in time to swipe the puck out of the crease (legally) and out of danger. The top line of Samsonov-Staal-LaRose has been on a roll, and not just at even strength.
18:05 2nd: The Panthers came perilously close to tying the game after Anton Babchuk panicked behind his own net and turned the puck over to Chris Higgins, who fired a shot from four feet that Cam Ward wasn't expecting and missed on. The shot hit the post twice but never went in the net, and Jay Harrison cleared the puck out of harm's way. A little too careless with the puck, and that's what happens.
End 2nd: The Panthers' Higgins came close to burying another one on a bad-angle backhander with 18 seconds left, but Ward stood tall and he's come up big when the Canes needed him to. It shows in the shot count; the Canes lead 20-9 overall after outshooting the Panthers 11-5 in the second period.
2:21 3rd: Canes lead 2-0; Skinner 5 (Cole, Ruutu) While Jeff Skinner gets the goal, Erik Cole did all the dirty work to make it happen. Cole drove the zone and went behind Clemmensen, while Skinner went straight to the net and waited. His patience paid off when Cole came around to the near side and found Skinner alone at the top of the crease for a tap-in.
3:21 3rd: Panthers cut it to 2-1; Hordichuk 1 (Weaver) A minute later, the Panthers' fourth line got them on the board. Darcy Hordichuk took a weird carom off the boards behind Ward and on a second rebound he roofed a shot that fooled Ward and may have been on edge when he shot it. Either way, we're right back to a one-goal game.
8:01 3rd: David Booth had a great scoring chance on a partial breakaway, but Ward shut him down and then Booth cross-checked Ward into his own net. Yeah, that's not looked on too kindly.
11:41 3rd: Canes back up by two; Staal 7 (unassisted) When it's your night, it's your night. Eric Staal is having one of those tonight, and his second goal put the Canes back up by two. It was a harmless-enough shot that would have normally been stopped by Clemmensen, but the puck changed direction off the stick of Panthers defenseman Bryan Allen halfway to the net and snuck under Clemmensen's glove.
14:55 3rd: I'm sure Cam Ward would rather be both lucky and good, but he's had luck on his side for sure tonight. He's had three posts hit behind him and a copule of head-scratching non-goals courtesy of the Panthers' failure to capitalize on mistakes, including just a second ago when David Booth whiffed on an open net from five feet out.
19:17 3rd: Panthers make it 3-2; Frolik 3 (McCabe, Wideman) In a scene that recalled Maurice's pulling Cam Ward with 3 minutes left in the loss to Washington last week, Peter DeBoer pulled Clemmensen with 2:22 remaining and it paid off, at least temporarily, when Michael Frolik took a weird shot that fooled Ward from the far boards along the side of the circle. Ward may have been screened, but the Panthers sure weren't complaining.
End 3rd: The Panthers pulled Clemmensen again and came close with a couple of neat passing plays late in the period, but the Canes survived to win their second straight at home and pull out a split in the back-to-back series. They move to 25-5-2 all-time against the Panthers at the RBC Center, their best record against any team since the 1999 opening of the arena. The Panthers outshot the Canes 11-9 in the third period, to pull to within 29-20 for the night.
Postgame: Paul Maurice had a great line when asked about the shot differentials between here and Florida: "Our shot clock guy wasn't on Red Bull." Energy drinks aside, the Canes played a much more complete game tonight and they earned every bit of the win. It's hard to believe, but tonight's game was the start of the Canes' first homestand of the season; they haven't played more than one game in a row at the RBC all season, but they're back here Tuesday and Thursday of next week. Tuomo Ruutu, for one, was quite pleased.
Click for audio from Eric Staal, Erik Cole and Tuomo Ruutu. Paul Maurice's press conference is attached.
Back Tuesday night when the Canes host the Edmonton Oilers in their only meeting of the season, a rematch of the 2006 Stanley Cup final.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
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