The Canes are now 3 games deep in the season without a win. Last night was an improvement for the almost unanimously listless effort on Friday against the Devils. But the effort was sporadic at best and probably deserving of the final outcome.

A few observations:

1) Young defense and subtle plays. I think we saw the subtle difference between smart veteran defensemen and young still-maturing defensemen against the Caps. In my estimation, Anton Babchuk had a bad game in the 1st period. On the Semin goal, his lack of a decision to do anything specific led to common results from a heady scorer on a 1-on-1 rush --- use him as a screen. Any decision at all (step up on the puck, go down to take away a low shot, just get all the the way out of the way and let Ward see the puck) probably results in a harmless shot on goal. Instead he did mostly nothing and become a 2nd offensive player on a screen shot right past his skates. This was followed by a turnover on the blueline on the powerplay and an ugly play where he tried too early/aggressively to take away the outside on Brashear and got beat to the inside. We know where that puck would have ended up had it been Ovechkin or Semin beat him inside with a track to the goal.

Gleason has been generally good and one of the brighter points on defense, but the 2nd Semin goal was another example of subtle decision-making. First, in his defense, Gleason had just been dinged by a puck and could not move. You obviously cannot fault him for that. But if he does the only thing he can which is to go down to take away the low shot, Ward is not screened and also knows to stay up to try to take away the top half of the net. Last year Aaron Ward or Glen Wesley makes the right decision 9 out of 10 times. This year, we are seeing bigger roles and more shifts for younger guys. With that, you get something more like 5-6 out of 10 even if they are decent players.

2) Whitney/Staal/Cole. The big scoring line was invisible last night until they took 2 frustration penalties late to help seal the deal. If you look at yesterday's game up to the point where Ward gave up the soft goal to Ovechkin to make it 3-2 Caps in the 3rd, this game had "ugly but solid 2 points on the road" written all over it. The Canes showed only sporadic effort and managed 2 goals and a 2-2 tie. At this point, they were looking for that 1 big goal to swing the game. Despite a not so impressive game, if they can muster one goal from Whitney/Staal/Cole, the Canes push this game to overtime and maybe even win it.

3) Cam Ward. In the 1st 2 games, Ward gave up 6 goals. 2 were double deflections. 3 were deflections. And 1 was a powerplay tap in. His 3.00 GAA was inflated and misleading. But yesterday, the fog that surrounded the team on Friday night, finally crept its way to the crease. Ward seemed to have all kinds of trouble seeing the puck through the fog on Saturday. Even many saves were followed by uncertain "where is it/I might have it/there it is" body language.

4) Questioning the unquestionable. First, Lavi's coaching is not the problem. The guys with the skates are in a bit of a funk right now. And questioning anything that Coach Laviolette does is out of fashion right now in North Carolina, as it should be after last season. But I think he made a mistake starting Ward last night. To be clear, in no way am I suggesting that Ward should have sat because of his play. He was very good in the first 2 games and beaten by 5 deflections and defense that did nothing to stop these plays. But in my opinion the stack of reasons to start Grahame were overwhelming last night:

--He was just due to start. The common thought before the team started a small funk against NJ was that Grahame would get his feet wet on Saturday in the 2nd half of the back-to-back.

--Though Ward was not the problem, the team was horrible the night before. A new goalie shakes things up a little, and it also shields Ward a little getting sucked into the potential team mess if Friday night carried over.

Now we sit with a game that Ward would logically play (3 days rest) coming up, but Ward coming off a less-than-average outing and Grahame yet to play.

5) Eerily reminiscent. This game was eerily reminiscent to opening night in 2002 against the Rangers where the defending Eastern Conference champions got beat, got frustrated late and started the revenge/penalty thing and went on to a horrible 02-03 season. This is a different team. This is a different year. It is going to be okay. We hope. Word is that the logical off-day today with 3 days until the next game will instead be one of those unpleasant practices.

6) This game had a couple great examples of the right and wrong ways to vent frustration in a game like this. Coach Laviolette did not mention names, but more or less called out Cole (late game slash behind the play) and Staal (unsportsmanlike conduct for yammering at the refs). These guys are supposed to be young leaders at this point. Instead of trying to claw back from a late 4-2 hole (reference 05-06 team that actually did it more than once), they instead took 2 selfish penalties to all but seal the loss. Then separately with about 1 minute left you get Scott Walker. Brashear takes 3-4 jabs/pokes at Niclas Wallin coming up the ice away from the play and gives him an earful. Wallin takes it in stride and just moves on. About 10 seconds later Walker appears on the scene and in his own words tells Brashear that this complete BS and that he could care less if he is a heavyweight enforcer playing against a team that does not dress one. Good for Scott! That is the type of leadership that was expected from him and will be invaluable as the Canes work to establish themselves in a new season now that the big silver cup is gone away to wherever it goes during the regular season.

6) Semin. Many a young star bursts on the scene with a wicked shot, speed, size, moves, strength and whatever other list of physical features you can add to the list. Last night Semin showed me a the heady play of a "smart not just talented" goal scorer. On the first goal, he was skating 1-on-1 with a defenseman in decent position and really had nowhere to go. So he drove him just enough to open up the skating legs and used him as a screen. On the 2nd goal, he quickly realized that the defenseman in front of who was hobbled and could not move. So rather than firing the puck toward the net, he surveyed the situation for what felt like 5 seconds and somehow came up with an angle for the shot that went around Gleason one way and somehow over Ward's shoulder the other way. I had to watch the replay 3 times to appreciate it and see exactly how the heck he got his stick/body/puck where he did to get that angle on the shot. It was only on the 4th viewing that I noticed the Super Pretzel advertisement on his sleeve. And the last goal was a typical "easy goal" except that the guys who get the most of these easy goals are guys who smartly get themselves to dangerous places on the ice with no one around them.

7) We are only 3 games in. The sky is not falling.

Tomorrow, I will give my 2 cents on what is different between last year's magic and the early struggles this season.

Go Canes!

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