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!