In the big picture, this loss probably doesn't mean a whole lot in terms of how it affects Carolina's season. It's only their second loss in the span of two weeks and they can regain their lead in the Southeast with a win over the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday. The NHL has a long season and losses are going to happen so there's a good chance that this is just a slight bump in the road for the Hurricanes. While that is true, the way they lost tonight's game to the Washington Capitals was infuriating to watch for the fans, coaching staff and the players.

The Hurricanes started out this game with all guns blazing, getting two early goals in the first period and throttling the Caps in all areas. It looked like this would be another game where the Hurricanes would coast their way to an easy victory but it didn't go down like that. Naturally, they drifted back into a defensive shell in the second period and it ended up costing them with the Caps fourth line catching the Hurricanes napping and scoring to make it a one-goal game. After that, the Canes woke up a little bit and were at least able to limit the Caps chances and play strong defensively. The whole team just looked off compared to their performance in the first period, though. They were fanning on shots, not connecting on their passes and had serious trouble adjusting to the Capitals forecheck which resulted in some downright ugly breakout attempts.

All of it culminated at the end of the second period when Eric Staal was sent to the sinbin for a high-sticking call and the Capitals made them pay for it on the ensuing powerplay to begin the third. Once the score was tied, the Canes started to wake up and play more like they did in the first period and had quite a few opportunities to take the lead. All of which were for naught thanks to the play of Washington goaltender Michal Neuvirth who turned aside 15 shots in the third frame alone and 36 total on the night. Blowing the two goal lead aside, the Hurricanes played well enough to at least earn a point against Washington tonight...until they were guilty of a terrible line change which resulted in a breakaway for Alexander Ovechkin and the Caps were just barely able to get the game-winning goal across the line to seal up a victory.

This was a prime example of a team giving a game away to the opponent. The Hurricanes were in full control for the first 20 minutes but allowed the Caps to get back into because they took their foot off the gas pedal. I don't think there was anything wrong with how they played in the third period overall, but the margin of error is slim in a tie game and the Hurricanes committed a brutal mistake at the absolute worst time possible and it ended up costing them. This was a game where the Canes could have easily gotten at least one point in the standings in but they ended up going home with nothing and have nobody but themselves to blame.

It's really a shame to see a mostly solid game by the Canes go to waste because of a few dumb mistakes and it's especially frustrating when it happens in a divisional game, but they can partially erase this loss with a win over Tampa Bay on Saturday night. They will just need to get these mistakes out of their system.

There is going to be no shortage of young talent in training camp this fall as the Hurricanes followed up their signing of Danny Biega yesterday by inking 19-year-old defenseman Keegan Lowe to a three-year entry-level contract today. Lowe was the Hurricanes 3rd round pick in the 2011 draft and is currently playing his fourth season with the Edmonton Oil Kings of the Western Hockey League. Lowe will be eligible to play in Charlotte once the Oil Kings' season is over, but that could be awhile from now with the team currently sit at the top of their division in the WHL and heading towards the playoffs.

Keegan is the son of former Edmonton Oiler great Kevin Lowe and likely gets a fair bit of publicity since he's currently playing junior hockey in the city where his father won five Stanley Cups. He is currently the captain of the Oil Kings and is having a career season in terms of goals (15) and points (30) so his development is coming along very nicely. There is probably a lot expected from Lowe in Edmonton but he is far from the best blue-liner on his team and is more depended on for a leadership role as the captain. He also has a presence as a tough guy, as he has racked up a lot of fighting majors and a ton of penalty minutes in his junior hockey career. A part of the season where Lowe really shined was when Edmonton lost a few of their best defensemen to the World Junior Championships, forcing him to play more minutes and he was able to thrive in them, putting up some solid counting numbers. 

Admitelly, I haven't seen much of Lowe this season aside from highlights, but he tends to be all over the place judging from those clips. Scouting reports peg him as more of a shutdown-type player, but there have been quite a few times where I've seen him roaming in front of the net on the powerplay. He also has quite a big shot from the point and has really shown it off this season with his 15 goals. His offense is something that scouting reports haven't talked about it a lot, but that part of his game has been coming around this season it seems. It will be nice if Edmonton makes it all the way to the Memorial Cup again so Hurricanes fans can get an even closer look at him.

Lowe will turn 20 at the end of the Month so he is still very young, but it's possible that he could be in the pros starting this fall. He was drafted more as a "project" but his development has been coming along very nicely if the reports out of Edmonton are any indication. I would expect him to be a candidate to make the Checkers roster out of camp or at least get the 10-game tryout look. I always say that you can never have too many young defensemen in your team's system, so getting both Lowe and Biega signed was a great move by Jim Rutherford and the Hurricanes.

Now that Harvard's season is over, the Hurricanes were able to come to terms with their third round pick from the 2010 draft, Danny Biega. Biega is a mobile, two-way defenseman and just finished up his senior year as the captain of Harvard's ice hockey team. His career with the Hurricanes organization will begin a little earlier than planned, as the team inked him to a three-year, two-way contract that will start this season and he made his professional debut last night with the Charlotte Checkers. Unfortunately, Biega took a hard hit early in that game and had to leave but he is practicing now and should be with the Carolina organization for at least the next few years. 

Biega is a prospect I've had my eye on for quite sometime and while he had a disappointing senior year, he is still a great talent and has a lot of tools that can make him a future NHL-er. His greatest strengths are is offensive instincts, which were on full display during his junior season where he was a point-per-game player (34-10-35) and the quarterback of Harvard's powerplay. His play during that year earned him many honors including being named to the All-ECAC team.

He has a decent shot and really excels at moving the puck out of the defensive zone, which could definitely help him later on in his career. Biega's defensive game is also said to be very strong but not his best asset according to scouting reports. His skating, hockey sense and puck-moving skills remain his biggest strengths.

I've had my eyes on Biega for quite awhile now and was excited about his senior year, but he didn't have as good of a year as I had hoped. He finished the season with only 2 goals and 11 points in 32 games and his team lost in the first round of their conference tournament last weekend. Biega wasn't the only player on the Crimson who struggled, though as it was a down year for the entire team and it seems the loss of Alexander Killorn has hit them pretty hard.

One positive stat from Biega was that he was third on the team in shots on goal with 85, which could mean that poor luck was a factor in him scoring only two goals and having a -10 on the season. A defensemen being able to get that many shots on net is pretty impressive and could show some potential for him as a third-pairing defenseman at the NHL level. I'm personally hoping for more but young defensemen are tough to figure out, especially ones from the NCAA ranks.

I would expect Biega to be a key member on Charlotte's blue-line for the rest of the season as well as next season. If he impresses enough he could get a look at the NHL level sooner than most think but we'll have to wait and see what happens there. The Hurricanes getting Biega signed to his ELC right now not only bolsters their organizational depth on defense, but it can possibly give the Charlotte Checkers a boost as they continue to march towards the playoffs. With the amount of injuries and players lost they've had to deal with, more bodies is never a bad thing.

The Hurricanes penalty kill reached a new low on February 11, 2013 when the New York Islanders powerplay lit them up for four goals in a game but since then, things have been looking up. The Canes PK has allowed only six goals in the 14 games since then and have climbed their way out of the bottom-10 in the NHL. How effective they have been on the PK in the last 13 games has actually become quite a story, as they've allowed only four goals on 44 powerplay opportunities. It's very important that the Hurricanes continue to be successful on the penalty kll because poor special teams play cost them a few games early on in the season, especially with their powerplay slumping right now.

The turnaround of the Hurricanes penalty kill has been very impressive, there's no doubt about that but what are the odds that the team's recent success on the PK is only smoke & mirrors? They are still at the bottom of the NHL in terms of shots allowed while playing 4-on-5 and have relied on their goaltenders to bail them out of more than a few bad situations. Is it possible that the Canes PK is no different than that of the Toronto Maple Leafs which has also seen a streak of good luck in recent games? The overall underlying numbers suggest so, but let's take a look and see what exactly has changed with the Hurricanes PK in the last 13 games.

PK GA = Penalty kill goals allowed, Pen/Game = Number of penalty kills per game, PK SA = Shots against on penalty ill, PK SV% = Penalty kill save percentage, SA/PK = Shots against per penalty kill

The Hurricanes penalty kill has gotten rather lucky in these last 13 games with the team having a shorthanded save percentage of .925. They are allowing slightly fewer shots but not enough to go from allowing over .20 goals per kill to less than .10 in the span of only 13 games. A decline that sharp is usually the sign of either good or bad luck and that's probably the case with the Hurricanes this season. Their penalty kill likely wasn't as bad as it was for the first 12 games, but it also isn't nearly as good as what we've seen the last 12 games.
 

That being said, the Hurricanes are doing some good things on the penalty kill. After all, they are yielding fewer shots than they were earlier in the season and I think some of that has to do with Eric Staal and Alexander Semin becoming regular additions on the PK. Neither are known for their defensive game (although Semin is vastly underrated), but the Hurricanes are allowing fewer shorthanded shots on goal when these two are on the ice. A lot of it has to do with these two playing an aggressive style on the PK, leading to a few shorthanded breakaways and scoring chances for the Hurricanes. Both Staal and Semin are usually the best players on the ice for the Hurricanes, which makes them a threat no matter what the playing situation is and why they have been good additions to the penalty kill.

Above all, the most important thing to consider with the Hurricanes improvements on the PK is that they have been taking less penalties in general. They've been shorthanded fewer times and alleviating some pressure off their penalty killers to bail the team out of a tough spot. Out of all the things that have gone right for the Hurricanes lately, the fact that they are taking fewer penalties might be the most critical. One less penalty per game may not seem like much, but it can make a difference in the big picture with how much a powerplay goal can change the complexion of a game.

So while the Hurricanes penalty kill has gotten pretty fortunate over the last month or so, they are doing some good things to help improve their shorthanded play and it all starts with the team taking fewer penalties.

I think most would agree that the Hurricanes dominated last night's game in just about every area. They shutout the Caps 4-0, had a huge advantage in even strength shots were most of the game and outworked them for most of the game. The only area that the Canes did not have a distinct advantage in was scoring chances. While they did crush Washington territorially, the Canes defense was still a bit leaky and gave up quite a few transition chances to the Caps. Most of these were one-and-done and the Canes ended up with a 20-17 advantage overall, but the defense gave up a lot of dangerous shots to Washington and had trouble dealing with the speed of some of their forwards.

The Hurricanes gave Justin Peters plenty of support last night with a three (eventually four) goal cushion, but he had to do a lot of work to earn his second career shutout and earned the first star honors. In addition to Peters' excellent performance in net, there were plenty of other things for Hurricanes fans to be happy about last night and the play of their second line should be near the top of the list.

It's not too often I have a guest writer on here, but ESPN TrueHoop writer Michael Pina showed me an article he wrote on Alexander Semin and I thought it was worth posting on here. Semin has quickly established himself as a fan-favorite among Caniacs and it's nice to see that his strong play has been catching the national eye this year, too.

Whenever a professional athlete “just needs a change of scenery,” the line is usually a misleading twist of the narrative that actually means “whatever ugliness that’s going on isn’t Player X’s fault. He’s cool, it’s everyone else who’s messed up!”

In sports, this turn of phrase has firmly planted itself on the Mt. Rushmore of scapegoat targeting one-liners. It’s whispered all the time, by players, agents, coaches, owners, even fans. It’s the standard excuse maker, and almost always sums up a tricky situation by skimming over the meat and potatoes that explain what exactly is/was/will be wrong. More times than not whatever’s actually wrong is too complex to identify.

Carolina Hurricanes right winger Alexander Semin was the NHL’s prime “just needs a change of scenery” guy this past summer. After making his NHL debut as a 19-year-old in 2003, Semin spent seven oft-tumultuous seasons with the Washington Capitals. But for the most part his work on the ice went without complaint. He’s one of 18 NHL players to average at least 30 goals during the last six seasons, and has recorded the fifth most goals in Capitals history.

(For “change of scenery” cases to even be relevant the subject must be supremely gifted, and if he isn’t succeeding it’s an easy way to explain mysterious struggles.)

Nobody doubted his ability to dominate on the ice—setting up teammates with unparalleled foresight and seemingly scoring at will with a wrist shot so precise it could cut glass—but Semin’s attitude was criticized by teammates, those who spend more time with him than his own family.

Most of the questions centered around his work ethic, or lack thereof, which likely factored into his signing just a one-year deal and would normally be seen as a death sentence for players possessing less natural talent. Former teammate Matt Bradley once said Semin “just doesn’t care,” and the Hurricanes did heavy background research into his mindset, interviewing his former coach Bruce Boudreau on the issue, before inking Semin to a deal.

In the end Carolina thought their “scenery” would do Semin good, and so far their relatively low-risk investment has paid off tenfold.

Through the season’s first 24 games he’s been nothing short of brilliant, boasting a plus/minus of +18—third best in the entire league (teammate Eric Staal and Pittsburgh’s Chris Kunitz are the only two who’re better, and Semin has only registered a negative plus/minus in five games). He’s also averaging 1.08 points per game, which is as helpful as it sounds, and ranks 15^th in the league (Sidney Crosby leads the NHL with 1.73 points per game).

It’s still somewhat early into a lockout shortened season, but so far Semin’s new environment seems to be having a profound effect on his game. That, or it’s done nothing at all. 

Michael Pina is a writer for ESPN’s TrueHoop Network and ScoreBig.com. Follow him on Twitter @MichaelVPina.

Carolina's 4-0 shutout over Washington Capitals tonight was eerily similar to the game these two teams played two weeks ago at the Verizon Center. You had one team coming in on a relatively high note and rolling through the game without much trouble while their injury-depleted opponents barely put up much of a fight. The Hurricanes may have been on the wrong side of that duel a week ago but tonight, they were the dominant team and played one of their strongest games of the season. The quality of their opponent should be taken into account here because the Capitals are a team that is currently down in the dumps and were dressing basically an AHL defense tonight, but it's still a win and two points in the books in the end. Add in the fact that this was a divisional win on the road and it's hard to find much to complain about tonight's performance.

Even though the score was close for most of the game, the Hurricanes had control of this contest for a good 80% of the time. Washington had a chance to get things going in their favor early in the first period when their first line created a transition scoring chance, but Marcus Johansson ended up fanning on an open net and the Hurricanes responded by getting a lucky goal a few minutes later. From then on, the Hurricanes dominated play at even strength, took the crowd out of the game and basically just coasted the rest of the way through. This was about as good of a road game as you can expect a team to play and let's hope that Carolina can continue to keep the ball rolling in the rematch this Thursday.

Carolina Hurricanes at Washington Capitals
7 p.m., Verizon Center
TV: FS-Carolinas, CSN-Washington

Ask any Caorlina fan what the low point of the Hurricanes season was and they will likely point to their 3-0 loss to the Washington Captials two weeks ago. The Hurricanes roster experienced a barrage of injuries at the time and put together easily their worst performance of the season. They were outchanced 23-12 at even strength alone and were just dominated in all phases of the game. Things could have easily been much uglier on the scoreboard if it wasn't for the play of Cam Ward. To make things even worse, the Canes had also won only one out of five games at this point and zero games within their own division, which led to a lot of questions of this team's effort. 

The team's performance on that night was not up to standard, but in the heat of the moment it is easy to forget that the Canes were not playing with their permanent roster. Their defense corps consisted of two AHL-ers and one junior hockey player along with AHL depth composing most of their bottom-six. Add in some disjointed lines and that's usually a recipe for disaster. The Hurricanes have slowly gotten more healthy since that night and have won four of their last five games, so I would expect different things in tonight's re-match with the Caps.

I know that everyone wanted that game against the Caps to be special with all of the media fanfare surrounding Alexander Semin's return to Washington, but that was just one bad game and the Hurricanes can put that behind behind them with a win tonight. The Hurricanes can do themselves a huge favor this week by gaining points in their three divisional games this week, while the Caps are hanging on for dear life to their playoff chances so this game is relatively important for both teams. The Caps are probably the more desperate team, but the Canes seriously need to start picking up some more divisional wins if they want to lock up the Southeast. 

Having a reasonably healthy roster will help the Canes tonight but they are still going to need to play much better than they did on their last trip to Verizon Center if they want to escape with two points.

I think most would agree that the Hurricanes have not been a great defensive team this year. They rank towards the bottom of the league in shots against, penalty killing and seem to get involved in run-and-gun style games almost every other night. This makes for some very exciting hockey but it can drive fans insane at times because blown coverages and defensive mistakes are going to happen when you play a very open style. Yet, the Hurricanes have managed to win games despite this and have been controlling the play at even strength when the game is close.

There is always the concern of whether or not this type of hockey can succeed in the playoffs, as many of the recent Stanley Cup champions such as the Los Angeles Kings and Chicago Blackhawks featured terrific defenses. I'm sure that many would love for the Hurricanes defense to play like that but it isn't feasible right now. They don't have top-end talents like Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook or Drew Doughty to anchor their defense corps, at least not yet, so the most they can do is make the best of what they currently have.

That doesn't mean the Hurricanes are doomed in the long run, though because there have been some less-than-stellar defensive teams who have gone the distance even with less than stellar defenses. The Boston Bruins and Pittsburgh Penguins being good recent examples of that. Adding to that, the Hurricanes are a team that's been producing a lot of shots every night, as well so they are capable of driving the play and being a net positive team in terms of puck possession. A reason for this is because they have quite a few top-end forwards up front and no shortage of capable puck-moving defensemen on their blue-line. 

The old phrase in sports is that "defense wins championships" but having a good offense is just as important in today's NHL. Having a good defense and goaltending is obviously critical to winning, but the impact of a good offense is something that's often understated. You don't need to be a major in statistics to understand that teams who have the puck more often than their opponents are likely to score more while yielding fewer shots and thus, winning more games. This isn't the case all the time since even good possession teams can flounder if they have terrible goaltending, but clubs towards the top of the standings are normally ones who are stronger at controlling the shot battle at even strength.

This is where having forwards who can drive the play forward come in handy. Players like Eric Staal, Alexander Semin, Jordan Staal and Jeff Skinner. The Staal brothers might be the only ones of this group who receive credit for their two-way play, but Skinner and Semin have just as big of an impact in regards to the Hurricanes territorial play. The Hurricanes produce more scoring chances per 60 minutes when Skinner is on the ice than anyone else and our earlier look at zone entries showed that he gets the puck into the offensive zone more often than any other player. He is also doing this while playing on a line with Jordan Staal, which not only means that the Canes have possession of the puck when they are on the ice, it means that the opposing team's top lines are stuck in their own end, too.

That limits the impact of the other team's top forwards and puts them at a disadvantage. Skinner is prone to slip ups in coverage when his own zone, but he doesn't need to defend for over 50% of the time he is on the ice, which mitigates his flaws and means he is doing more good than harm. The first line has a similar effect, but they've also received a zone start push from the coaching staff and aren't relied on to drive the play as much as Jordan Staal & Jeff Skinner. This is why not having Skinner for five games hurt the team a lot.

Another player whose absence is felt for similar reasons is Joni Pitkanen. Offensive defensemen are often somewhat underrated for this reason. They might never take a shift on the PK and are prone to some terrible mistakes, but if they are effective at driving the play forward it means that their defensive shortcomings do not matter as much and they are doing a lot of help for their team as a whole. We've seen Erik Karlsson have this effect on the Senators for the last couple of years and players like Lubomir Visnovsky have also made a similar impact on their teams. Pitkanen isn't in the same class as Karlsson, but his strengths as an offensive player have had a great impact on the Hurricanes over the years and that has been especially true this season.

Having a defenseman capable of driving the play adds another demension to a team's offensive attack and it's especially helpful if said defenseman is a good puck-handler because that gives the opposing defense much more to worry about. If you look at the zone entry article linked earlier, you'll see that Pitkanen is, by far, Carolina's best defenseman in regards to neutral zone play and that's one of the reasons the Hurricanes are a better team when he is healthy.

Another area where defensemen like Pitkanen help out is exciting the zone. I've lost count of the number of times that a team has failed to generate much offense because their defensemen can't move the puck forward at all, which is why having players capable of doing this is important.

These are the Hurricanes 5v5 zone exit numbers which I have been tracking all season. What I've done is counted every time a Carolina player touched the puck in an attempt to exit the zone, noted if they were able to successfully advance the puck (whether it was via carry, pass or by other means), turned it over or iced it. I haven't been able to link this to a team's ability to drive the play forward, but I think most hockey fans will tell you that the ability to get the puck out of the zone is very important, especially with defensemen, so this is worth looking at.

You can see that Pitkanen is the best defensemen on the Hurricanes at advancing the puck during 5v5 play but another player who has also been very good at doing this is Joe Corvo and he is probably one of the most under-appreciated players on the team. I'm pretty sure that there was an audible groan from the Hurricanes fanbase when Jim Rutherford decided to bring Corvo back to Carolina for a third tour of duty and while he is far from an ideal replacement for Bryan Allen, one thing that he is able to do is get the puck moving in the right direction. It's something that he has been great at doing over most of his career and it's really helped this season since Bobby Sanguinetti's play has come along slower than most were hoping.

In the 150+ games I have tracked, the average zone exit advance rate for defensemen is about 22%, so both Corvo and Pitkanen are performing at an above average level when it comes to getting the puck out. Corvo is doing this while playing fewer minutes and easier opponents than Pitkanen, but he is still playing his role fine and he has actually been a lot better than expected. 

There are going to be many claims that the Hurricanes need to "tighten up" defensively in order to go anywhere in the playoffs and while that's a valid complaint, Carolina isn't going to become a great defensive team with the roster they have now. Adding a defenseman at the trade deadline isn't going to completely fix everything either and you can even make the argument that adding a shutdown defenseman here would be trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Fortunately, Kirk Muller has been able to adapt to this team's strengths and has put together a squad that's pretty good at controlling puck possession, which is what usually leads to more wins. The only problem is that this strategy isn't as effective when Pitkanen is out of the lineup and his return can not come soon enough.

Last week, the Hurricanes were well ahead of the pack in the Southeast after picking up two wins over the Florida Panthers in a home-and-home series. How do they look now after winning two out of three games against non-divisional opponents? Answer: not much better or worse than they were a week ago, but they are making progress at the very least.

GR = Games Remaining, Pts = Points, Avail. = Points available, Needed = Points needed to 55, Point% = Percentage of games they need to earn points to get to 55, Div. = Divisional games remaining 

Even with the Hurricanes struggles within the division, the Hurricanes are still in the best shape to win the Southeast after going 2-1-0 the past week and improving their lead in the standings. The only team that has been gaining some ground on them is the Winnipeg Jets, who went 2-1-1 in their past week and picked up wins over two divisional teams. They are only three points behind the Hurricanes in the standings but they also have played one more game than Carolina, which puts them at a slight disadvantage.

It's easy to look at the standings and say "Oh no, Winnipeg is only three points behind! Carolina really needs to win tonight!" but the one game in hand puts a little less pressure on the Hurricanes. However, the Canes do have a pretty big week coming up where they play Washington twice and then Tampa Bay on the road. This won't make or break the season for Carolina thanks to the position they're in now, but they can easily let Washington or Tampa Bay climb back into the race if they fail to get any points this week. In other words, they aren't "must win" games but things will be much easier for the Hurricanes down the road if they do win.

Tampa Bay was actually still in the race for awhile but their recent slide has put them in a bad position while the Caps had a chance to make things interesting before dropping both games to the Rangers and Islanders. 

In addition to being in a good position, the Hurricanes also have the most optimistic outlook for the rest of the season compared to the divisional adversaries.

In addition to being one of two teams with a positive goal differential, Carolina has also done a better job at controlling the play at even strength and has gotten better goaltending than the rest of the pack. I'm not sure if this will continue with the Justin Peters/Dan Ellis tandem, but I think the Hurricanes will be fine if they can be average for the rest of the season. The fact that the Hurricanes are controlling 52% of the shots with the score close puts less pressure on their goaltenders anyway. The only thing that the Hurricanes need to be very concerned about is their penalty kill, which has been just atrocious at preventing shots. The other teams in the division aren't exactly good on the PK either but Carolina's is still much worse. They've had a good streak of not allowing goals lately, but that will come to an end if they continue to struggle preventing shots.

One other thing I will say is do not sleep on the Winnipeg Jets. I've heard nothing but bad press out of there lately but the team doesn't look too bad all things considered. They need to go something like 12-7-5 to make the playoffs, but they've been pretty good at even strength this season and aren't that far behind Carolina in the standings. Their bad powerplay and terrible PK save percentage might hurt them, but they can still challenge Carolina for the top seed if the Canes struggle the rest of the way.

I have a feeling that this chart will look very different for the Hurricanes by the end of next week. If they can get points or win their next three games then they will be in an even better spot than they are now, but if they drop all three games then things will be much tighter. Going .500 for the rest of the season is all Carolina needs to do to make the playoffs, which sounds easy enough but we've seen many teams fall apart down the stretch in previous seasons. Let's hope Carolina can avoid that.

Stats courtesy of Behind the Net.