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RALEIGH, N.C. — The NHL sure is a funny place this season.
Way back on Oct. 9, the Carolina Hurricanes rolled into Toronto and signalled their return to the league's elite teams with an efficient 7-1 demolition of the Maple Leafs. The Leafs went on to stumble around and then hit bottom a couple of weeks ago with a couple of losses that sparked an uproar in Southern Ontario from Kitchener-Waterloo to Belleville.
Now here we are at the first meeting between the teams since then and the roles are reversed. Well, sort of. The Hurricanes are still third in the Eastern Conference, but that is only thanks to their position as Southeast Division leaders. Otherwise, their 37 points would place them in a fifth-place tie with the Montreal Canadiens, three points ahead of the ninth-place Leafs before last night's games.
In their past 10 games, the Hurricanes were 4-6, while the Leafs tore off a four-game winning streak and were 6-3-1.
Related Information
- Carolina Hurricanes
- Montreal Canadiens
- Philadelphia Flyers
- Rod Brind'Amour
- Erik Cole
- Mike Commodore
- Frantisek Kaberle
- Andrew Ladd
- Bryan McCabe
- Cory Stillman
- Cam Ward
- Glen Wesley
So it's crisis time down on Tobacco Road, although the Hurricanes' bandwagon did not crash as noisily as the one up north did. For that to happen, the lone hockey writer for the lone newspaper in Raleigh would have to somehow turn the bandwagon into a NASCAR racer, fill it with hockey players and crash it into a pep rallies for the Duke and North Carolina college basketball teams.
This is not to say the players have not felt the flutter of panic among themselves. Centre Rod Brind'Amour, who will mark his 1,300th NHL game when the Leafs hit the RBC Center tonight, thinks the Hurricanes' 6-5 shootout win on Saturday over the Philadelphia Flyers, in their previous game, served to calm them down a little.
"We needed a win like that," he said yesterday. "It eased things a bit the past couple of days. It allows us to relax a bit and get on to the next game."
No one has any easy explanation for the Hurricanes' slide. Goaltender Cam Ward is having his ups and downs, but so are a number of his teammates.
"I just think that's the way the league is now," Brind'Amour said. "The teams are so evenly matched. If you don't come out working hard every night, it happens."
Working hard, head coach Peter Laviolette hinted, might be the problem sometimes. "The biggest determination will be work ethic," he suggested when asked about the key to tonight's game.
The Hurricanes ran into some of the same trouble that bothered the Leafs until recently. They have trouble hanging on to leads, which comes from a tendency to cough up the puck in their own end.
However, unlike the Leafs, the Hurricanes got a break on the injury front yesterday. Their leading scorer, Cory Stillman, was able to practise yesterday and is expected to play tonight.
In Saturday's game against the Flyers, Stillman had to leave the game in severe pain from what appeared to be a serious injury. He was pushed backward over his left leg and injured both the leg and his ankle.
"He should be available," Laviolette said of Stillman. "He participated in a full practice."
The Leafs will be without one of their top two defencemen.
Bryan McCabe had surgery on his hand yesterday, which was broken in three places in Saturday's loss to the Montreal Canadiens. While the Leafs remain stoic, the Hurricanes say McCabe's absence has to hurt.
"It does affect you," Laviolette said. "I speak from experience. We've been forced to play without guys like Erik Cole, Cory Stillman, [Frantisek] Kaberle. It's an opportunity for someone else to step up."
The Hurricanes will be without forward Andrew Ladd (flu) and defenceman Mike Commodore (broken finger).
Naturally, the Hurricanes were all playing down that 7-1 laugher back in October.
"It wasn't an easy game, not like the score indicated," defenceman Glen Wesley said with no sign of a smile. "Remember, it is a lot easier to come back in this day and age. No lead is safe. Teams have come back from three, four-goal deficits.
"So you don't take things for granted out there. There are no easy wins in this league. I'm sure they haven't forgotten what happened in Toronto."
