Is anyone else at the point where he/she starts rising up out of his/her seat anytime Skinner touches the puck these days? Even if it is in the defensive zone?
I am on record as saying that January will decide the Canes season, so this is obviously a great start. The game still had a stretch of big time sloppiness in the 2nd period, but it was at least a notch better than the outings last week.
With the win the Canes move to within 5 points of Washington for #2 in the Metro Division and within 3 points of Philadelphia (who starts its game soon) for #3.
A few quick notes:
--Jeff Skinner. His scoring run right now harkens back to the massive scoring deluge by the Tlusty/EStaal/Semin line last season except that he is doing quite a bit of it by himself more so than having a line creating chance after chance. There really is no shot in the offensive zone that is a bad shot for him right now.
--Anton Khudobin. There were some signs of rust. He had trouble throughout controlling rebounds, and he did allow a bad goal on the odd angle shot that went through him. But he was also incredibly quick on 1st shots and was mentally strong down the stretch. When you net it out, he got 60 minutes closer to regaining his form, gave up only 3 goals on 41 shots and netted a win.
--Ryan Murphy. Just when it seemed like he had skated so deep that he only had a bad angle shot left, he found a hole through the defender to Skinner and a key point in the standings in the process. Especially with Washington being so good in the shootout, that was a key goal.
--John-Michael Liles. He had a mixed game. He looked comfortable on the power play which is I think the place where he can make the biggest impact. Defensively, he had some struggles here and there but mostly survived them and was on the ice for 3 goals for which is of course not a bad thing. It is too early to really assess him in finality. He needs a bit of time to acclimate and regain confidence.
--Brett Bellemore. I think he was the Canes best defenseman tonight. He made play after play in his own end to minimize trouble when the Canes got hemmed in a bit.
The key for the Canes is to find a sustained level of consistent play. I would not say that Thursday night versus Washington was it, but it was at least a step closer than last week's mess even in the win on Tuesday. Here is hoping that the Canes can take another step forward in terms of quality of play and also register points in the standings on Saturday night versus the Isles.
Twitter=@CarolinaMatt563
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