To put it in North Carolina State Fair terms, at about 9:20pm Friday night the prospect of investing a Friday night watching the Canes seemed about like eating a couple fried oreo/snickers/bacon treats and then hopping on whatever ride could spin me in circles the fastest. It could be fun. But it also had the potential to make me very sick. While the result was the same and again disappointing, the Canes loss in Edmonton on Friday night was at least more watchable. The Canes were actually in the game, and they managed to get shots and even goals and by virtue of at least having some scoring and hope into the 3rd period, I at least did not finish it completely sick to my stomach.

But the result was the same, and I am not sure that the quality of play was really that much higher. The Canes managed a good number of shots right out of the gate, but I think it mostly masked the ongoing problems moving the puck up the ice, getting anything going in transition and entering the zone anything better than 1v2 or 2v3. While the volume of shots was up, especially early, it was more a matter of taking any kind of chance to get the puck to the net. With a kick 'em when they're down from the hockey gods throwing in 1 abysmal missed call (Bellemore slash) and another questionable call (Gleason having stick stolen), the Canes arguably deserved better on Friday, but that is about how it is going right now.

The biggest positive for me was that as rough as it has been in terms of results, I did not get a sense that the team was quitting on it Friday night. They just are not very good right now.

And there was other modest progress:

--Alexander Semin. He quietly played a pretty good game. Again, the ability for the Canes as a team to get anything going in transition/off the rush or with anything pretty in the offensive zone is virtually non-existent right now. Yet Semin put the puck on sticks pretty consistently throughout the game at least generating some kind of scoring chances. He was also the other body battling in front of the net on Nash's deflection goal. At the end of the day, he needs to score to earn his keep, but Friday was at least a step in the right direction.

--Justin Faulk. He too played a much better game. Unlike just about other game, he mostly stayed out of trouble and looked a bit better with the puck on his stick. The Canes still lost with him on the ice (he was minus 2), but he too at least took a step forward.

--Jeff Skinner. He broke through offensively with his 1st goal in his 2nd game. The struggling and undermanned offense needs a lot from him. The goal was another that showed his arguably league-best ability to shoot from any kind of weird contorted position and find net. Friday's was not as crazy as some, but it did feature him basically being hooked, then having to reach oddly for the puck only to shoot it in the midst of the reaching motion as if the puck was neatly on a tee for him. I don't think anyone in the NHL does this as well as Skinner.

--Andrej Sekera. Separated from the 2014-15 struggles of Justin Faulk Sekera was a plus 2 in a game when no other Cane was positive. He did not do anything specific to earn his positive rating. He is just a good hockey player who generally plays sound defense and is 1 of the few Canes with any hope to move the puck up the ice right now to actually play less defense.

--Terry/McClement/Boychuk. There +/- was poor as a result of being on the ice for (but not directly responsible for) a few of the bad Canes goals caused by Khudobin's rebounds, bad coverage and a turnover, but I think they were pretty good again. McClement is winning draws and going to the net, and Boychuk and Terry keep playing better than advertised defensively with everything crumbling around them. McClement had the nice feed on the Harrison goal, and McClement clanged the pipe on a pretty pass from Boychuk in the 1st period.

The bad:

--Anton Khudobin. He had a rough game. He continues to be okay on 1st shots, but he is fighting the puck and spitting out bad rebounds because of it. Against the Rangers, the Canes cleaned up everything, but if you continue to spit the puck out in/around the crease, it eventually ends up behind you. We saw that on the 1st goal against Winnipeg and twice more in Edmonton. Here is a question though. How many goals has Khudobin actually been beaten by 1st shots (so not deflections/screens or rebounds)? Not many. He just needs to find the rebound control to right the ship.

--Volume of bad hockey. There was just too much between the rebounds, the untimely turnovers, the missed coverage, inability to move the puck up the ice with any kind of cohesion, etc. And that I guess is how you start out 0-5-2.

The Carolina Hurricanes get only 1 more chance to finish October with a win. Personally, if the early going is any indication of how often we Canes fans are going to experience wins this season, I would rather save up for PNC Arena next weekend.

Twitter=@CarolinaMatt63

Go Canes!

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