Thursday night in Nashville, the Carolina Hurricanes rode a strong start and another huge offensive night from Jeff Skinner to their 2nd consecutive win, a .500 record and the #4 slot in in the Metro Division remaining a point behind the Rangers who also won.
Quick player and other notes:
--Jeff Skinner. Usually if you said that a player scored 3 goals in 2 games all through the goalie and at least in the range of being a soft goal, you would declare the player lucky. But while there is always a little bit of good fortune when you score through a goalie hole, at significant part of if it is that Skinner is just a goal scorer. His release, the quickness with which he can get the puck to the net and the obvious difficulty reading the puck off his stick continues to regularly leave goalies just a tiny bit too slow.
--Eric Staal. EStaal did notch a lone assist, but I would still argue that Thursday's game is the exact model for what the Canes need a quiet night on the score sheet to look like unlike his frustration and penalty-filled struggles early in the season. EStaal battled and was on the puck all night along the boards in the offensive zone working with Ruutu to play a significant portion of their ice time in the offensive zone.
--Tuomo Ruutu. The hockey gods did step in and give him an assist, but his best play was another non-score sheet assist being the screen for Skinner's 2nd goal giving him a 2-game streak with 3 non-score sheet scoring points total. He was the other half of the strong puck possession game by EStaal's line.
--Justin Peters. He fought it a bit, but to his credit he made a couple of his best saves after his troubles on the 2nd goal and held it together better than the guy in the other net. On a night that was not his best, he still gave his team a chance to win, and it capitalized.
--Heady play by Hainsey. Ron Hainsey made an incredibly heady play on the all-important goal by Riley Nash to pull the Canes ahead 3-2. Coming out of the box as a forward, he was 1st smart enough to stay on the ice for the rush and then even better played textbook forward hockey on the play driving the net to creating a passing lane and a mess behind him that led to a great chance for Nash. Credit to Riley Nash too obviously for making no mistake finishing it.
--The blue line. Down a man (Komisarek) fairly early the defensemen held together well and kept the volume and quality of chances reasonable on a night when
--A break in the other net. For the 2nd consecutive game, the Canes saw the opposing goalie have a rough night and capitalized on it. Take it when you can get it.
Up next the Canes get a fair back-to-back in which both teams have to play the night before and travel. San Jose should be a little bit snarly after losing badly to Pittsburgh tonight. Friday will require a fairly significant lineup check in. Despite winning, I would expect Muller to go to Ward Friday night with the back-to-back and with Peters being only good enough on Thursday. Komisarek (lower body), Dwyer (stick in the face up under visor) and Tlusty (???) left the game Thursday. In addition, Bowman got stung by a puck. He did return but played limited minutes down the stretch, so it is unclear if that was the injury or just coach's decision. Hopefully Gleason is ready to go if needed tomorrow with Bellemore and possibly Komisarek now out on defense.
The opponent is a challenging 1 tomorrow in San Jose, but with the Caps and Rangers having the night off tomorrow, the Canes get the opportunity to at least temporarily jump to #2 in the Metro Division!
Twitter=@CarolinaMatt63
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