On the stat sheet, last night's 4-2 loss to the Montreal Canadiens looks like a game that the Hurricanes could/should have won but ended up losing thanks to running into a hot goaltender. They put up 43 shots against Carey Price but came away with only two goals while Montreal had only 28 shots and were outchanced 21-15. It's true that the Hurricanes had a huge advantage in shots and looked dominant at times last night, but Price was not their only problem. They may have had a chance at getting at least a point in this game if Price didn't play as well as he did but it would be a stretch to consider it anything more than that.

I mentioned in my recap last night that this game resembled the Hurricanes season because it came with many highs and lows and the scoring chance summary agrees with that sentiment.

Yesterday, I wrote about my concerns of the Hurricanes first line experiencing some regression because they are currently producing at a ridiculous rate that is boosted by a high on-ice shooting percentage. these three continued to laugh in the face of even strength shooting regression last night by producing three goals en route to a 4-3 win over the Buffalo Sabre. To make me look even more foolish, all three goals they scored came at even strength which gives Eric Staal a share of the league lead in even strength points this season with 24. While I do believe the Law of Averages will kick in for these three eventually, it's hard not to enjoy what they are doing right now because it's been a long time sice the Hurricanes had a first line this powerful. It's not only just that they are producing a lot of chances on a nightly basis, but more of the fact that they seem to be a threat to score whenever they're out there. Part of that is due to high shooting percentages, but they are still a threat regardless.

As for tonight's game, the first line certainly came to play as Staal & Semin were on-ice for six of Carolina's 10 even strength chances, but the rest of the team wasn't at their best. Part of the reason for this is because the team had a two goal lead for most of the game and opted to sit back while the Sabres tried to mount a comeback. They ended up getting outshot 40-28 and outchanced 21-16, but the Sabres did most of their damage in the third period while playing catch-up. I thought the Hurricanes had control of the game while it was close and whenever the Sabres did get to within a goal, the Canes responded with one of their own.

This is the second game in a row where Carolina has been involved in a score-effects driven contest and ended up on the wrong end of the chance/shot ledger, but they were also playing with a big lead so it's nothing worth worrying about yet. Obviously I would rather have the Hurricanes play stronger with a lead rather than just sit back and simply try not to lose, but they managed to get the job done in the end. Let's see if their strategy changes if they get off to a similar start against Montreal or New Jersey in the next couple of games.

After Carolina put on a show against Florida at home on Saturday night, fans were treated to a slightly less-thrilling affair the following night in the rematch between the two teams. The pattern of the game was a bit similar with the Canes getting a 3-0 lead and the Panthers playing catchup for the rest of the game, but this was was much less eventful and Carolina didn't even come close to dominating Florida like they did in the previous matchup. In fact, the Panthers were the ones who had the edge in even strength play last night, as they outshot the Canes 33-19 at even strength and outchanced them 16-12 overall. Part of the reason was because of Carolina having a 3-0 lead for 30+ minutes, but the Hurricanes weren't exactly controlling the play at even strength for most of the game and the goaltending tandem of Cam Ward & Dan Ellis bail them out a couple times in the first and third periods respectively. 

Getting a three goal cushion early in the game is always a good thing but both goaltenders had to do their share of work to make sure that the Panthers didn't pull off a comeback.

The Hurricanes were able to follow up a strong performance on Thursday night with another one last night against the Panthers, defeating them 6-2. After the win over Pittsburgh, I mentioned that one of the only bad things about that game was that the Hurricanes scoring chance production only came from their top-six players and nobody else. This wasn't the case in their win last night, as the Hurricanes got production from all four lines with their third line alone producing three goals. The Canes put together easily their strongest performance offensively last night, recording 21 scoring chances at even strength alone and 24 overall, both of which were season highs.

Florida is a bad team and they certainly showed that tonight, but it was still impressive to see the Hurricanes do such a good job of dominating the territorial game while playing with a big lead. Last night was the first time in awhile that I've seen the Hurricanes control the shot clock that much and get rewarded for it. This game was basically what the Washington Capitals did to them on Tuesday night, only with more scoring. Let's see if they can perform at a similar level tomorrow for the re-match. 

Last night's 4-1 win over the Penguins is one of those games that fans won't want to nit-pick at because it was such a strong performance by the entire team. The top two lines played great, Cam ward played great, the PK was the strongest it's been all season and the Canes did an excellent job of containing the Penguins at even strength. That all led to an impressive win and a huge confidence boost for this team head into the weekend series against Florida. Playing well at even strength is usually what wins games and the Hurricanes did that last night, so there isn't much to complain about overall. The only real problem that can be drawn out from last night's win is that the Hurricanes offense was heavily relient on their top players, meaning they were the only ones who produced and almost nobody else pitched in.

We'll discuss this and more after the jump.

Last night was easily the worst game the Hurricanes played this season. It wasn't the first time they've been shutout this season but it's was the most dominated they have been at even strength since last season. Carolina's defensive play reached a new low last night by surrendering 23 scoring chances against to the Caps at even strength play alone. The Capitals only had three goals on the board, but they could have gotten at least five or six if it wasn't for the play of Cam Ward. Much of the criticism in this game was directed towards the Hurricanes offense or lack thereof and while that's fair, not having enough offense isn't the problem when your team gives up this many chances in one game. The reason why the Canes weren't creating much offense is because the Capitals had the puck in Carolina's zone 60% of the time.

The Hurricanes have done a good job of winning the battle at even strength this year, but that hasn't been the case since this barrage of injuries occurred and they got the stuffing kicked out of them last night. I've criticized the team's effort and have been saying that injuries aren't an excuse, but I don't think a healthy roster lets this happen to them.

Last night's 4-2 win over the Islanders was an ugly win for the Hurricanes, so it probably won't surprise you to hear that they were outchanced at even strength. The Canes have made somewhat of a habit of pulling out wins like this as last night was only the fifth time this season they were outchanced and the third time they won a game where that happened. I'm not sure what that says about the team but at least they were able to pull out a win despite not being at their best for the entire game. We've seen this team put together better performances than last night and not be rewarded for it, so I guess you can consider this making up for lost luck.

The roster not being at 100% obviously effects how well this team can control play at even strength, so any wins are good right now. The Canes have enough forward to get by right now and some of their depth players have performed admirably in these last three games or so. The defense, however, is hurting badly and it's had a big impact on Carolina's territorial play. All teams have to go through injuries, but that doesn't change the fact have a noticable talent drop-off after their first pairing. The Canes do have some organizational depth on their blue line, but it's hard to expect guys from the AHL to slide into Pitkanen, Gleason and McBain's roles without some growing pains. This group will have their good and bad nights but defensive breakdowns and mistakes are going to happen that will result in some grade-A scoring chances for the opposing team. This is what we've been seeing the last few games but the Canes were still able to edge out a win despite the defensive lapses, so let's be happy but cautious going forward.

The Hurricanes have another game in about 14 hours and I'm sure many fans want to forget about last night's 5-2 loss to the Lightning as quickly as possible, so let's get the statistical analysis over with now. This game will be remembered as a complete stinker for most Carolina followers, but that mostly applies to the third period. Let's not forget that the Hurricanes were reasonably in this game for the first 40 minutes. They played terrible in the third period and that is what everyone will remember because that's why they ended up losing the way they did. There is no excuse for how the team played during that frame and it was s terrible way to end this brief homestand, but saying that the season is over because they had a bad 20 minutes is just ridiculous.

Carolina has been a poor defensive team for the majority of this season, which makes it very surprising that two of their best defensive performances came in games where they were missing two of their top blue-liners. Those games being last week's win over Toronto and last night's 4-3 loss to Winnipeg. Carolina yielded only seven even strength scoring chances to the Jets and ten overall, which are season lows for the team an a testament to how well the defense played. The only lapse by the defense unfortunately came at the worst time when Joe Corvo made a poor play in the neutral zone which allowed the Jets to get the go-ahead goal in the third period. This mistake along with a terrible performance in net from Cam Ward are the main reasons why Carolina lost this game despite a great performance by most of the team.

This goes down as the most frustrating loss of the season but the Hurricanes injury-riddled roster did show us a lot of good things that could instill some confidence going forward.

Thanks to a plethora of injuries, the Hurricanes went into last night's game short on talent and forward depth and came away with their worst offensive performance of the season. Carolina's injury depleted lineup created only nine even strength scoring chances, four of which coming in the final two minutes of the second period, and eleven overall. Both are season lows for this team and about what you would expect from a squad that's missing their best scorer and top offensive defenseman. If there was ever a game for Montreal to start Peter Budaj, last night was ideal, as the Hurricanes could not generate much of a sustained attack on the veteran back-up. All of which resulted in the team's first shutout loss of the season.

I mentioned in my recap that Carolina had a good gameplan going in, as they were able to get the puck deep and had a few great shifts where they were able to keep the puck in the Canadiens zone but couldn't generate many shots. The scoring chance report reflects this well as the Canes did not have many quality chances but they didn't allow many to the Canadiens either, allowing only 10 at even strength on the game. Carolina's depth forward did not do much and they are partially to blame for the low offensive output, but the Canes top line was still in-tact last night and they did not do much either. Some credit goes to Montreal's defensive play but Carolina's first line definitely had an off-night for their standards.

We'll take a closer look at how they and the rest of the team played last night after the jump.