And so the season ends...

Happy Easter everyone! Today marks the end of the regular season - that means all of the playoff matchups are determined (although the dates are going to be released whenever...). The Canes have ended up as the sixth seed - not too shabby - with an upcoming series against the New Jersey Devils.

But before I get too far into the future, the immidiate past wasn't that great for the Canes. They could have ended up with a higher seed if they had just won one more game. But that wasn't to be.

The Canes put out a pretty poor showing in the game against the Sabres, losing 5-1. Eric Staal scored with less than thirty seconds left to nullify a Ryan Miller shutout. Otherwise the Canes looked pretty sluggish throughout the game.

Which made it pretty miserable because losing to Buffalo is never fun. And losing on Fan Appreciation Night isn't fun either. So altogether it was a pretty sucky night.

Then on Saturday, the Canes lost to the Devils 3-2. Which might seem somewhat alarming, as that's the team the Canes are set to play for at least the next four games. But, when you factor out the flukey goals that bounced off the endboards right in front of an open net (Yes, there were two of these goals in the same period because apparently Michael Leighton is a slow learner...) the Canes actually won this game 2-1.

So the Canes ended their crazy-long winning streak and got a lesser playoff seed. But I'm not feeling too concerned about it now - I mean, after all, we are in the playoffs! And that's a heckuva lot better than the previous two seasons.

Final season stats:
Erik Cole (With the Canes): 2 goals, 13 assists
(Total): 18 goals, 24 assists

Chad LaRose: 19 goals, 12 assists