First off, let's be clear - tonight's loss to the Pens is not so much a point in assessing the decision to fire Laviolette and hire Maurice. Maurice is just a game in and picks it up heading into 3 games in 4 nights with no time to make any drastic changes.

With Pittsburgh playing last night and traveling and also the extra adrenaline boost from the coaching change, you would hope to see the Canes come out with the better jump and energy. And despite the horrible 5-2 score against, I think this mostly fell into line. The Canes actually skated pretty well and generated a decent volume of good chances off the rush. The difference was the ability to finish. This one smells a little like the Anaheim loss where you could argue that the Canes deserved better. But with fewer chances but too many very good ones caused by Canes mistakes, the Pens turned it into an easy road win.

A few notes:

1) Welcome back! How great was it to see Justin Williams back in the lineup so soon. When he was injured in camp, it sounded more like early January. We can use all the help we can get right now.

2) Time to put all of the mistakes behind us. Where is Casey Borer? This morning Peter Laviolette took the hatchet for his role in what has been a very up and down team this season. As long as we are putting the past behind us and moving forward in the best way possible, Jim Rutherford needs to step up too, punt on the $1M the team owes Melichar for this season and put the best defensemen he has available in the lineup. Borer was very decent stepping in this time last season and is a year older and more developed. Even with a new coach giving everyone a clean slate and Kaberle going down to injury during the game, Maurice could only manage 11 minutes for Melichar. The results suggest that he will see the 5-7 that Laviolette was giving him again soon.

Rutherford needs to own up that this move did not work out and give his coach 1 of the better options (Borer or Carson) that he has available in Albany. With Kaberle and Seidenberg added to the injury mix and Gleason still a ways away, now is not the time to hope the Melichar thing gets better.

3) Still losing the best against the best. Tonight was another game where Staal was not horrible, but just did not get it done. Ruutu was his usual flying-around self. Samsonov made some plays. There were chances and points there for Staal. He finished with nothing. Meanwhile, Crosby turned every rush up the ice into a Pittsburgh goal.

4) Bayda/Cullen/Eaves. They continue to be a bright point. Tonight was 1 of Eaves couple best games this season. He has begun to look a bit like Ruutu of late skating like mad, consistently being around the puck and getting in the way in the neutral zone. Cullen has been 1 of the Canes couple best forwards for a string of games now.

5) The mistakes. That was the story tonight. 2 Pens goals came directly from turnovers at the blueline (Melichar, Wallin) that led directly to odd man rushes and goals.

6) Bad timing. Leighton was very good early in the season. At the quarter mark of the season, Leighton was a solid contributor as a backup goalie. Now 2 starts into the 2nd quarter of the season, he is 0 for 2 in terms of playing a solid game. Though the damage was already done in the 1st 2 periods, perhaps he shook off some rust and found something to build on in the 3rd period. Personally, I think I would have gotten Peters feet wet in a harmless way in the 3rd period and take a curious peek to see if I could get lucky and ride an excited kid to a couple wins to buy some time. Instead, my guess is that Maurice just wants to get Leighton as much ice time as possible to work out kinks heading into 2 more games this weekend.

This team is really at a crucial juncture of the season right now:

-Ward appears to be out for a week or more, and suddenly Leighton does not look comfortable in net.

-The defense is banged up. Gleason, then Seidenberg, now maybe Kaberle again.

-The team needs to adjust on the fly with a new coach and some new things, but these in-season changes afford no timeout to redo training camp.

-The schedule is not so kind. The Canes next 5 games are against good teams (Phi, Was, Phi, NYR, Mon). There are no easy points to be had.

For all of the things that this team has not been able to do in 08-09, the 1 thing they have done is answer adversity. A few of the teams best wins have followed low points in the season. They desperately need another round of that. If it takes 3-4 weeks to make adjustments and if the team's leaders cannot step up and carry the team for a stretch and if the fill-ins in net and on the blue line cannot get it done, that could be the trifecta of doom that digs too deep of a hole to climb out of when they get it going.

If Eric Staal is going to put this team on his back for a couple weeks this season (he did it for more than a few weeks last spring), now is the time. If Rod BrindAmour is going to get past the knee injury or regain his form or whatever, now is the time. If Leighton is going to go on a run for a couple weeks, now is the time. The next 2-3 weeks are crucial to determining whether the team is playing games that matter in March or giving some of the kids a tryout at the NHL level.

Oh the drama...

Go Canes!

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