It's an Erik Cole Christmas!

As you can see, it's been an Erik Cole kind of Christmas around these parts. I would like to think that the bobblehead turned out looking than those horrific pictures that were released earlier - but that might be the endless optimism talking.

Unfortunately, that optimism doesn't extend to how the Canes played in the 5-1 loss to Montreal. Two facts stand out that help to describe how poorly the Canes played:

1) Cam Ward was pulled after 10 minutes with the score 3-1.
2) The Canes had 47 shots on goal and one goal. That's a .979 save percentage for Mr. Jaroslav Halak.

Cam looked terrible on the third goal - a breakaway by Sergei Kostitsyn that should've been stopped - and didn't look that good on the first one, either. Our superstar Eric Staal was dropped to second line winger. There was pretty much nothing good by any player on our team - the fact that we had that many shots with so few goals should tell you that by itself.

Watching games like this, it is obvious that this team deserves to have less than ten wins this season. And it makes me want to cry, as it seems that any time there is any glimmer of this team beginning to play well they put out a performance like this, which crushes any seeds of optimism that were beginning to foster.

But this is not talk for Christmas Day! I'll save the whining for another day (probably soon, if the Canes play the same against the Flyers tomorrow). I hope that everyone had a Merry Christmas and that Santa brought many Canes-related gifts to place under your tree!