The capitals beat Tampa Bay tonight, so the magic number remains two.  The good news is that the Canes still control their own destiny.  Win friday, and they're in.

Lose Friday... and anything could happen.  We'd have 92 points, and we'd need Washington to lose.  If Washington were to win Saturday night, they'd have 94 points and would take the southeast division.

If *THAT* happened... we'd be stuck hoping that Boston and Philadelphia don't win any more games - both have two left.  The canes would hold the tiebreaker over Boston (who currenly has 92 points), and over Philly (who currenly has only 91 points), so the Canes COULD take a low seed if that were to happen.

But the chances are slim.  The best way for us to get to the playoffs is to beat Floriday tomorrow night.

See you there!

GO CANES!

Thanks to a great effort against Tampa Bay tonight, the Canes reduced their magic number to 2 tonight, with a 6-2 victory.  That's 2 points for us, or two points lost by Washington.  Personally, I hope Tampa Bay rebounds and beats Washington tomorrow night so I don't have to think about NOT going to the playoffs when I'm at the game on Friday.  I don't need that kind of stress.

Chad LaRose got a hat trick tonight.  His third goal (the Canes 6th) was a real goal-scorers goal, he took the pass from Eric Cole and skated in on the net and just fooled Mike Smith with some back and forth moves.  LaRose got Smith to commit too early and he made one last switch to the backhand (I think) and dropped it in the net.  It was a beauty.  I am bummed that I missed seeing it live.

See you Friday night!

GO CANES!

Okay, so the Hurricanes lost again last night to the Caps, leaving us tied with them for first place in the southeast..  Luckily, we've got the tiebreaker, so if it all ended today, we'd be in and they'd be out.

But we've got two games left - Tampa Bay tonight and Florida on Friday.  Lucky  Washington gets Tampa Bay tomorrow night and Florida Saturday night.

Basically, we've got to win.  If we lose tonight, our destiny is out of our hands.  Right now it's still in our hands, but we've got to win.

Go Canes!

So I bought my playoff strips, but it's unlikely that I'll be able to afford to go to all of the rounds 3 and 4 games, if we make it to those rounds.  At $65 each for Round 3 and $90 each for Round 4, I may have tickets available to games 1 and 2 of each series.

If we get there =)

I may also have tickets available to a game in round 2 - if we get there - depending on the schedule, as I've got a trip out of town scheduled in late April.

If you're interested in "dibs" on these tickets, please let me know.

Carolina is playing the best hockey of the season right now, and just in time.  Remember they started off the season only losing one of the first 10 in regulation, but they were still only 6-1-3.  Hot start, but not nearly as hot as they've been lately, going 8-1, and and 11-2-1 in their last 14.

We're down to 10 games... and after the next two against Buffalo and Ottawa, it's all southeast division after that, and 5 home games.

GO CANES!

What a crazy night last night!   It's always extra fun with Carolina and Buffalo get together but last night the crowd seemed even more buffalo slanted than normal.  I think there were probably 5000 buffalo fans in the arena and when they scored, it was pretty loud.

Buffalo fans are always extremely obnoxious too.  They're noisy, and most of them seem to be drunk, and don't mind running up and down the aisles during puck play hollering about how awesome their team is.  Maybe it's the blue-collar, "$10/hour is the best I can do" nature of Buffalo fans, who knows.

But if there ever was a playoff athmosphere in a regular season game, last night was it!  Thank god we scored first and maintained the lead for most of the game or it could've been even more stressful than it was.  When Buffalo tied it up, I was worried, and the Canes blew 2 straight powerplays to end the game, and in the OT, Buffalo couldn't stay out of the box, and Carolina won the game with a game winner from Scott Walker on the power play.

Since Washington lost yesterday, Carolina stretched its division lead to 7 points over Washington, who dropped back into a tie with Florida for second place.  The Crapitols still have 2 games in hand, so it's nice to keep building the lead.

Go Canes!

I know, I've been a slacker this year again in blogging about the Canes. 

I just felt I should blog about Sergei Samsonov, acquired earlier off the waiver wire, claiming him on re-entry waivers.  The move came as a surprise to many Canes fans, as Samsonov had been struggling this year and last year prior to coming here.  He had zero goals and only 4 assists in 23 games with the Blackhawks, and last year only had 9 goals and 17 assists in 63 games with the Canadiens.

He's been one of our best scorers in his 24 games since he joined the Hurricanes, scoring 11 goals and 10 assists.

Jim Rutherford, as usual, knows what he's doing most of the time.  We all make a few mistakes here and there (Trevor Letowski was a mistake, if you ask me).  But Sergei Samsonov was not one of them.  He's pretty freakin' awesome.  The change of zip code has definately done him good!

Box Score

I missed most of both games this weekend due to other obligations, and Monday's game wasn't on TV and my clock radio - the only radio in my house - doesn't get 99.9FM.  I hate that.

But I did tune into FSN last night for the Canes-Sabres game, and wow, what a fun game!  2 periods of exciting, somewhat stressful hockey that ended with a 2-2 tie, and then an offensive blowout in the third period with the Canes scoring 4 goals for the 6-2 win.

Bret Hedican came to play, scoring a goal and getting two assists.  Eric Staal had a goal and two assists too.  And Jeff Hamilton made an amazing slapshot that I don't think anyone could've stopped by any manner of skill, it was like a rocket.

No time to go into further detail but the Canes are now 6-1-3 and looking mighty fine.  They've gotten points in 9 of 10 hockey games, and have a nice 7 point lead in the southeast division.

See you at the game Friday night!

GO CANES!

Box Score

In a game of goaltending excellence, Cam Ward and the Hurricanes came out on top again.  Carolina came out and completely dominated the play of the first two periods, outshooting Montreal 30-8.   But thanks to some incredible play by Habs goalie Cirstobal Huet, Carolina clung to a mere 2-1 lead going into the second intermission.   Montreal came out skating and shooting in the third, putting up 16 shots and also commiting no penalties (something they had done a lot of in the first two periods), but Cam Ward made amazing save after amazing save.  Chad LaRose, still getting extra playing time due to the injury to Ladd, was rewarded with an empty net goal at 19:44 to seal the deal.

I will admit, Montreal got screwed with about 3 minutes to go by a badly missed call at center ice that would've put Montreal on the power play.  Not saying that would've scored, because Cam *WAS* stopping anything and everything they threw at him, but the refs definately blew a call there.

It's tough to go on a long road trip, and one that includes 3 games in Canada is never easy, but the Canes are surviving so far with a 3-1 record.  They flew home last night after the game (I assume) to sleep in their own beds as they don't play again until next Friday.  Having won 3 straight, I'll bet Laviolette will give them today AND tomorrow off, before they start practicing again to get ready for the last 2 games of this 6 game road trip at Pittsburg and Philadelphia Friday and Saturday night.

Hopefully by then, Mike Commodore will be healthy and ready to skate again, but the defense has definately held up so far.  Knock on wood!