Since this is a little delayed, I figured that I should try out a new experiment with my statistical recaps instead of just going over the scoring chances. I usually track those every game and present them here to show who had the edge in the territorial battle, but that's only one part of what I've been tracking all season. One goal that hockey statisticians have aimed to accomplish for years is to quantify every part of the game and while doing that here is feasibly impossible (only so much work one person can do), there's a lot of information that I chart down during games but I don't share a lot of in my recaps because there is a lot of stuff I can't track live. School reasons kept me from watching this game, so I was able to get everything tracked for this game and will share it with you all after the jump.

As for the game itself, it was yet another loss and the Hurricanes were overpowered by a superior Penguins team. They actually managed to hang tough with them for most of the game and took the lead in the third period, but the Pens were able to get a couple of quick goals and coast away with the win. This was far from the Hurricanes worst performance of the losing streak but they were clearly not the better team and deserved the loss. Not much else to say about this one, but I'll let the numbers do the talking.

Once again, the Canes were facing a team that did not bring their best game but were on the receiving end of another blowout loss because they could get a timely save from either of their goalies or buy a goal at the other end. This is the same thing that has happened to them over the last four weeks or so and the whole process is getting tiring because the outcome of most of their games is becoming too predictable. It doesn't matter how well the Canes played in terms of territorial domination or scoring chances because the fact that they can't score and are getting below-replacement level goaltending completely nullifies that, which is exactly what went wrong last night.

The Hurricanes actually started this game on a very strong note. Their game-plan was to forecheck strong, make it difficult for Boston to exit their zone and create chances off forcing turnovers & winning board battles. They did a fine job of this to start the game by getting five consecutive scoring chances in the first three and a half minutes. Then the Bruins were able to generate a transition chance the other way and scored on their second shot of the game after Justin Peters lost track of a rebound that Rich Peverley deposited underneath him. This didn't seem to phase Carolina that much, though as they continued to tran Boston in their own zone for the next few minutes of the game. Then the Bruins got another transition chance and Brad Marchand scored after Peters failed to control another rebound in the crease.

When you have a good start but can't score and end up trailing 2-0 or 3-0 thanks to terrible goaltending, it deflates the entire team and the Hurricanes obviously didn't recover from it last night. Add in Tuukka Rask giving the Bruins the early saves they needed and the team's confidence was shot heading into the first intermission. They continued to battle for the rest of the game, but it was an uphill climb and the game was far out of reach by the time the Hurricanes finally put home their first goal of the game. It's been the same old story for the past two weeks and I'm at a loss for words at what needs to be done about this.

The Hurricanes are basically a PDO nightmare right now and have been for the last couple of weeks. The goaltending has fallen apart since Dan Ellis injured his leg and rushed back from it and they aren't scoring right now either. The team is getting chances, but not finishing and I'm not sure what else they can do about that. They are stuck with Ellis/Peters for the time being and the goals just aren't coming no matter who they are facing in net. It's made every recent game look like a disaster scene and how to fix it is anyone's guess.

Last night's game was a good chance for the Hurricanes to get a win. They were going up against a Rangers team who just played an overtime game the previous night, had to travel and were starting the same goalie in a back-to-back situation on top of that. This seemed like a good chance for the Canes to right the sinking ship that is their season, but as you probably know, nothing has been going their way as of late and that trend continued last night. They outplayed a tired Rangers team during five-on-five play and ended up losing 4-1 because of a few reasons with the biggest one being the reigning Vezina Trophy winner Henrik Lundqvist. He was a brick wall last night, stopping 48 of 49 shots and 27 of 28 scoring chances. Goalies usually perform poorly in back-to-back starts, but I guess that rule doesn't apply to the King.

If you had flashbacks to the Tampa Bay game where Ben Bishop stoned the Hurricanes then I don't blame you because Lundqvist was just as good, if not better. It might be a tough sell to fans to say that goaltending was the difference in a 4-1 loss, but it was when you consider how much the Hurricanes controlled play at even strength. The Canes did basically everything they could to beat Lundqvist and couldn't solve him until the third period when they were already trailing 3-0. When you are facing a goalie who is playing as well as Lundqvist, the margin for error becomes smaller and smaller by the game, which makes mistakes like Dan Ellis vacating the net to give Ryan Callahan an open goal to shoot at hurt so much more.

That's just the way things have gone for the Hurricanes as of late, though. They managed to put up a huge offensive performance without their best winger in the lineup and don't get rewarded for it because they ran into an elite goaltender. It's frustrating to watch from a fan's standpoint and I can bet the players are probably even more infuriated with how the last three games have turned out. The Hurricanes probably deserved better than the 4-1 loss they took but they also made a lot of mistakes to help seal their fate.

This is coming a few days late thanks to Game Center Live's 48-hour blackout rule, but I just wanted to get the scoring chance numbers from the Washington game up so that everyone can see them. It was one of the few games of the losing streak that Carolina probably "deserved" to win but ended up on the losing end because of a terrible performance in net by Justin Peters & Dan Ellis. Despite greatly outplaying Washington for two-thirds of the game, the Canes were trailing 5-3 and then Washington was able to settle things down and force the Canes to play their game. The Canes were guilty of some bad defensive breakdowns on a couple of the Washington goals, but they had limited the Caps to only 19 shots & 11 scoring chances. Allowing five goals on that kind of a workload is inexcusable on any goalie's part.

The Hurricanes played a good game but got a bad result and I was hoping they could at least build off this for Thursday night against Tampa Bay, which did not happen obviously.

The Hurricanes do not have many pleasant recent memories from games against the Tampa Bay Lightning and the 5-0 white-washing they took last night was just another chapter added to the book of what has been a painful three weeks for this team. It seems that each loss is more frustrating than the last and last night's game may have been the worst of the last 11 games, which is odd to say because the Hurricanes did not play as bad as the final score indicates. They certainly don't lose any points for work ethic from me, since they had a pretty huge territorial advantage over Tampa Bay in this game and fired 78 shots at the net during even strength play alone. The 45 that actually got on net were turned away by Tampa Bay's newly acquired goaltender Ben Bishop, who frustrated and shut down the Hurricanes all night to earn his second career shutout.

Sometimes there's nothing you can do when you run into a hot goalie and Bishop played as well as any goaltender that Carolina has faced this season. Considering that 24 of the shots he faced were scoring chances, I think it's fair to say that he was the main reason Tampa Bay won this game, but he also got a hefty amount of goal support from the team in front of him. Part of that was due to some shaky goaltending on the part of Dan Ellis and brutal defensive breakdowns by the Hurricanes in the third period. Ellis took the blame for the loss after the game and while the first and third goals he let in were awful, the Canes defense left him out to dry on the other three.

Tonight's game was pretty much a microcosm of what this entire season has been for the Hurricanes. They outplayed the Lightning in the first period but did not get rewarded for it, gave up an early goal in the second period and then everything just seemed to snowball after that. "Fragile" has been the word of choice to describe this team lately for this exact reason, since everything seems to become more difficult for them whenever they fall into a hole. I wouldn't say that they "give up" whenever they are in a tough spot, but I do notice that they get rattled easily, become too afraid to make mistakes and it results in them getting away from their game and leading to more mistakes. This is what I saw after the Hurricanes fell down 2-0 and it's becoming a common theme for this team lately. Bishop stopping everything thrown his way probably added to their frustration.

The Canes had no problem responding to adversity earlier in the season, so I'm not exactly sure what happened to them over the last three weeks. If a team is playing well but falls behind due to unfortunate circumstances, the coach's response is usually just to "stick to their game" and that hasn't been happening for awhile now. The team was able to win games despite their flaws earlier in the season but now it seems that all of their problems are insurmountable. I'm also not sure what Kirk Muller needs to do to fix this since it's been almost a month of these performances and we've yet to see much of a change. It's disappointing, but the end of this season really can't come soon enough for the Hurricanes. They are beaten up physically from all the injuries and mentally since nothing has gone their way for over three weeks. It might be easy from the fan's standpoint to tell them to "just suck it up and win the game," but hockey is a tough game and the Hurricanes are making things a lot more difficult than they need to be right now.

This might sound terrible since the Hurricanes are battling for a playoff spot right now, but their game against the Canadiens last night was one I did not expect them to win. Montreal has been one of the best teams in the NHL this season and has been very tough to beat at home on top of that while the Hurricanes recently ended a seven game losing skid. The Hurricanes showed some improvement in the game against Winnipeg, but Montreal is at a different level than the Jets, so the most I was hoping for was for the Canes to get at least a point or show some improvement from the last two weeks.

Considering they lost 4-1 and were outchanced 18-13 (15-10), neither of those things happened but after watching the game, I didn't feel that the Hurricanes played as poorly as the final score indicates. They simply lost and were outplayed by a better team and you know what? That happens a lot. I'm not exactly sure what it says about the Hurricanes playoff chances, but I think it does show that they aren't good enough to be competitive with the other top teams in the Eastern Conference like the Canadiens. They won't have to play the Canadiens for the rest of the season, but they do have a a few more games against top Eastern Conference teams remaining, which could prove to be a very tough test if last night's game is any indication.

With that being said, I did not think the Hurricanes were awful last night despite putting up only 19 shots on goal and losing 4-1. In terms of territorial play, things were relatively even, but the Hurricanes weak powerplay and inability to hit the net (39 total missed & blocked shots) came back to haunt them again, resulting in them being on the losing end of the scoring chance battle for the ninth game in a row.

I don't think any Hurricanes player or fan cares about the numbers from their 3-1 win over the Winnipeg Jets and I can't blame them for it either. When you haven't gotten into the win column for seven straight games (spanning a little over two weeks), you take any victory you can get. It doesn't matter if the team plays flawlessly or just barely eeks out an ugly win because each one is very important at this stage of the year. The Hurricanes certainly pulled out an ugly win today over Winnipeg but they got the job done in the end, which is all that matters right now. 

The team's confidence was beginning to reach a new low during this losing streak so if anything, the Hurricanes being able to get a win could help give the team a bit of a spark going down the stretch and get back to the brand of hockey they were playing for the majority of the season. With only 15 games remaining, every bounce you get is going to have a much bigger impact than it would in a full-year, so the Canes being able to win despite not playing their best game is pretty huge.

With that being said, the Hurricanes certainly played better than they have in a couple of weeks and at least showed signs of progress. That's not exactly saying much since the bar was set low coming into today, but it's still a step forward and hopefully the Canes can build off it for the rest of the season. Now that we got that out of the way, let's take a closer look at the Hurricanes first win in over two weeks.

Last night, the Hurricanes nearly won a game that they had no business being in. They may have shown some "character" by battling back to tie the game in the second period and taking the lead in the third, but the Leafs were more deserving of the win. Toronto held Carolina to only six even strength scoring chances to the entire game and took 14 more shot attempts than them at even strength. There were only two Carolina players who were not outchanced at even strength in this game, most it being due to the Hurricanes being unable to produce offense while not on the powerplay. This goes down as a "heartbreaking loss" to some, but the only "heartbreaking" thing is whatever happened to this team over the last two weeks.

There was a time when the Hurricanes were a great team at even strength, outchanced their opponents regularly and generally were the better team even if they didn't pick up the win. It's pretty easy to remember this time because it was only a month ago and that really makes the last two weeks even more frustrating. We know that this team is what they've shown lately, and seeing them play at a level such lower than their ability is both frustrating and depressing. It's a mystery as to when this team will put the pieces back together but it might be too late by the time they do.

Yesterday marked the Hurricanes sixth loss in a row and the third time they lost by a score of 4-1 during this stretch. No matter how many times we hear from the coaches or the players that the "playoffs" are right now, fans keep getting treated to the same performances night in and night out. Last night's performance against Winnipeg was very disheartening because it had come after the team had four days off and had a chance to gain some ground in the playoff race against a divisional rival. They ended up falling flat on their faces yet again and just seem to be getting worse every game.

The blame for this loss seems to be circulated around one player, but a look at the underlying numbers shows that there are more who deserve it, mostly the guys who are supposed to be leading this team.

If you're willing to dig deep and find out what is wrong with the Carolina Hurricanes right now then I commend you because I've tried to break things down several times and have yet to come to an answer.  I was willing to write off the Tampa Bay game as a bad night but in the last three games, we've seen this team play well for maybe one period and then let the opponents dictate the play for the rest of the game. The most frustrating thing about it is that the Hurricanes haven't just "lost a step" after first periods, they get completely run over. This was the case against the Rangers on Monday night and last night in their 4-1 loss to the Devils. 

The Hurricanes started off strong despite falling behind 1-0 on a fluke goal and then went on a complete free fall after the first period. Recording only seven total shots in four minutes of play and only three scoring chances isn't going to win you a ton of games and neither is playing only 20 minutes of good hockey.