On consecutive nights, the Canes were not that good (not horrible but not good either) and they earned 3 points out of 4. You take it and look to re-find a higher gear next week.
The Canes came out slow and somehow survived a 1st period that was a struggle. The Caps had more jump. They outshot the Canes by a ton. Anton Khudobin continued on pretty much the same path he has been on for 2014-15. He was pretty good on 1st saves but struggled some with rebound control. He gave up 2 goals on 18 shots. The 1st goal was a fluky 1 for which Dwyer seemingly tried to bat an airborn puck over his net but instead scored. The 2nd goal was the only ding in Khudobin's armor when he was slow to the post and had a shot go off him from behind the red line and in. A late goal by Riley Nash got the Canes back in the game hoping for better in the 2nd period. But the Canes were only marginally better in the 2nd period and soon found themselves down 3-1 in the 3rd and destined for a loss. But a good pass from Skinner and finish by EStaal seemed to help the team find a burst of energy and a Faulk shot through traffic found a piece of Lindholm on the way to the back of the net to send the game to OT at 3-3. Backstrom scored on a rebound late in OT to send the Canes home with their 1st loss of November but a point streak intact. In a game where the Canes were outplayed for at least 30 if not 40 minutes and were the better team for maybe 10 minutes straight (at the end), you take the points and move forward.
A few quick player notes:
1) Anton Khudobin. As much as you would love to have the 2nd goal back, the game was a net positive for Khudobin. He was 2 weeks removed from a last start, made some good saves throughout and helped his team that was the lesser on the 2 on the ice get a point in the standings. All in all, it was a good effort and decent result for a backup possibly battling a little rustiness.
2) Tlusty/EStaal/Semin. They were disappointing. They were outplayed significantly through 2 periods by a line assigned to check them. Semin was 20/80 on 50/50 pucks for the night and did not make much happen offensively. Eric Staal was quiet and was the player who lost track of Fehr for the 3rd Caps goal. And minus any sustained offensive zone time by the line, Tlusty did not get a chance to finish and was mostly quiet for the night. Despite the sub-par night, they did get a bit of redemption and helped the team win a point with 1 good play when Semin found Skinner who then found EStaal for the Canes 2nd goal.
3) Same hot scoring hands. Elias Lindholm scored again pushing his goal total to 5 in the 5-game point streak. Justin Faulk continued his recent approach of firing pucks at the net whenever possible and was again rewarded with 2 assists bringing his point total to 5 (1 G, 4A) in the 5 games in November.
4) Heavy D minutes again - something to watch going forward. With nearly 5 minutes of extra hockey both nights and games on the line, Canes coach Bill Peters again leaned very heavily on his top defenders. Justin Faulk pushed real close to 30 minutes and has averaged 28 1/2 over the 2 games. Sekera was a close 2nd with 26 minutes Saturday and a 2-day average over 25 minutes. Faulk is young and strong, but that pace is not sustainable. It will be interesting to see how they react with another fairly quick turnaround on Monday and also if Peters can dial it back a little.
The Canes just finished up a fairly favorable stretch of schedule that saw a run of teams either banged up or just struggling in general. They made hay with 9 points out of 10. The schedule gets a bit harder next week starting with a tough matchup at home against Calgary on Monday.
Twitter=@CarolinaMatt63 #ForgetOctober
Go Canes!