Thursday's home loss to Winnipeg is a tough one to swallow. Despite a makeshift lineup minus 3 regular blueliners and 2 regular forwards (not counting Ruutu who is a longer term issue), the team mustered a pretty decent overall game, a surprisingly decent if not great defensive effort and probably deserved to win.

But Cam Ward was just horrible. There just is no way to candy coat it.

Goal 1: He got beat short side real early into a game where you were hoping the goalie would be there to bail you out if you needed it with all the inexperienced players playing significant minutes on the blue line.

Goal 2: He got beat short side again on a shot that can only find net if you give them net to shoot at.

Goal 3: He nonchalantly mishandles a squibber with the glove and then misses with his stick while falling away from the net to leave it wide open for Ladd.

To be fair, you can't hang goal #4 on him, as it was a breakaway, but at this point I think the team is just looking for something to get into overtime at least. It just was not to be tonight.

This is one of those games you need to quickly put behind you and move on. It is not at all like the early season failures that had tons of things that needed work. Canes deservedly played an undermanned game good enough to win 3-1 or 3-2 at worst.

A few player notes:

--Ryan Murphy. You can see why he is a first round pick and also why he is still in juniors all in the same game. I love the fact that he mostly played a Ryan Murphy kind of game as it went on carrying the puck a bit on some rushes and sneaking into the slot a couple times on offense. His gift is skating and offense from the back end, so if he is going to someday excel as an NHL player it must be riding this skill set not trying to adjust his game to be something different. I don't mean AT ALL to compare him in terms of where he is now, but his game is that of an Erik Karlsson. Karlsson is a pretty good defender, but a significant part of his success is because of his puck-moving ability. If he gets the puck on his stick, his team usually plays the next 20-25 seconds of that shift in the offensive zone. You can see where Murphy is going to have a challenge with the physical battles in his own end. There was one sequence where he got stuck with Evander Kane on the boards which looked like little kid vs. big kid.

But when you net it out, you have to love the upside and the excitement. I pencil him into the 3rd D pairing as a complement to a bigger, stay-home defenseman like Harrison next season.

For anyone that did not catch it, per the rules, he cannot stick around. Once the Canes sent him back to juniors he was gone. The team was able to get him back only as an "emergency injury replacement" and have to return him to juniors once they get enough healthy defensemen.

--Justin Faulk. He was phenomenal. He logged 29 minutes and was pretty much just safe and sound the entire time. Winnipeg managed only a handful of real good scoring opportunities (ironically not really the goals that went in), and he gets top billing for this.

--The pass of the year? You really need to get another look at the Semin pass on the 1st Tlusty goal via NHL.com, your DVR or wherever. That was crazy good in the way he worked the defenseman forward (craftiness) and then pulled the puck back for what almost seemed like a backwards, through the legs, around the back, whatever pass (the incredible creativity and hockey skill).

--Jiri Tlusty. He is proving to be the perfect complement for that line. Whereas I think Staal and Semin have both missed a couple chances when their partner managed an unexpected, nearly impossible pass, Tlusty is developing a knack for going to the net and being ready to shoot even at the point where it doesn't seem likely the puck could get there. But when it does, he finishes.

Joni Pitkanen who practiced yesterday might be ready to go Saturday. The Canes could use him. The downside is that it probably means that Murphy must return to Kitchener when ideally the team would probably prefer to keep him and send down Sanguinetti or Jordan.

Canes and Lightning are in a dead heat in the Southeast Division going into Saturday's game, so it's a big one. My hope is that we see a healthy Joni Pitkanen back in the lineup. His size and speed will help against the high-powered Tampa offense. My wild guess is that we see Dan Ellis Saturday after watching Cam Ward let in 5 bad goals in a span of 2 games.

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Go Canes!

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