Canes lose, hopefully will win tonight

Canes lost 4-3 to the Vancouver Canucks on Tuesday. Previously, the Canucks had lost nine straight at home, and eight straight in general.

*facepalm*

Well, it certainly looks like that wonderful win against Atlanta was a fluke. Granted, I didn't watch any of the game, but comments like these taken from the TSN.ca article don't make me feel warm and fuzzy about this game:

[Alex Burrows] beat Carolina goaltender Cam Ward with what he has previously described as his ''only'' move faking a forehand and roofing a backhand. It was a move that Burrows has made many times before, but Ward went the wrong way and could not recover quickly enough.

''I like coming down that side when I go to my go-to move,'' said Burrows, a left-handed shot who raced down left wing. ''I think everybody in the building knew I was going to do that, but obviously Cam Ward watches Eastern Time games and he doesn't stay up late at night to watch our games.''

Oh boy. Yeah, I'm pretty glad that I was fast asleep when this game was on. I think a shorthanded goal against to lose the game would have put me in an absolutely horrible mood.

The real test, though, is tonight against San Jose, the leader of the Western Conference. If we can play with them and win (heck, normally I'd say just play with them, but that won't help us come April) then I feel that the Canes have a good shot. If we get steamrolled, I'm not going to be too optimistic about our playoff chances.

The Canes are going to be without Rod Brind'Amour in the game tonight. Apparently he came back to Raleigh because of "nagging lower body issues", and Jakub Petruzalek (best name ever!) was called up in his place. I'm not entirely sure that this is a bad thing, considering the captain's lame play pretty much the entire season.

Apparently, the Canes are also going to be going with Michael Leighton in goal tonight, a move I find somewhat peculiar, as Cam has started the last sixteen or so games. Why the change, and specifically, why the change against the best team in the West? Maybe they're looking for a change to spark the rest of the lineup. Whatever, I just hope it works out.

Canes earn first preseason win

Canes went 1-1 against the Flyers this weekend.

They lost the first game 4-2, the Flyers being all emotional and whatnot because this was their last game at the Spectrum before its demolition, and they had all kinds of ceremonies and stuff.

Then there was today's game, which the Canes won 1-0. It was a lot more exciting than the score makes it seem - the Canes missing on tons of chances with an open or semi-open net. The Canes played a heckuva lot better than they did in the only other time I've seen them play this preseason (that being Wednesday). Staal, Cullen and Walker were some of the regulars in this game - Cullen didn't play the last two periods because he was hit hard and they were holding him out for "precautionary reasons". Samsonov was the one who scored the goal for the Canes.

I took my new digital camera to the game, and came back with 31 pictures. Most of them were blurry or pictures of the jumbotron so I could judge when in the game I took the pictures.

Anyways, this is the best picture of a string showing Scott Walker's fight with Nate Guenin.

And this is a random picture of Brandon Sutter. I have no idea when or why I took this (I think I was aiming at something else), but it's the best one of the bunch.
I debated taking a picture of the blood across the ice when Josef Melichar was struck by a high stick, but I didn't want to seem overly morbid.

And, the Canes have sent some people back down to juniors/Albany after this game. I'm bummed that Casey Borer didn't make it, and also Jakub Petruzalek, just because I think his name is completely awesome to say out loud a few times (try it!).

Making it through this round of cuts is Bryan Rodney, a defensemen who played really really well in today's game.

Next preseason game is Thursday at Nashville.