For the 2nd consecutive game, the Canes rode a combination of a great penalty kill and timely scoring from the bottom half of the roster to a win.

In these 2 games, only the very last game-winning goal came from any of the top 6 forwards netting them only 1 goal and 1 assist for the 2 wins. The bottom 6 plus the defensemen put up 3 goals in each game.

And in these 2 games, the penalty kill was perfect with a 7 for 7 on Friday and even more significantly generated 2 shorthanded goals.

In the long run, the team is going to need a lot more from the top half of the lineup, but the early signs from the depth and specific role players is very encouraging. Both of the common forward pairs on the penalty kill (Brandon Sutter/Patrick Dwyer, Tim Brent/Jiri Tlusty) look like they are in late season form. And any combination of another defenseman with Tim Gleason or Bryan Allen using their size and willingness to block shots looks good.

Cam Ward also had a great outing boosting his record to an even 2-2 after an 0-2 start.

A couple quick hitters:

--Jiri Tlusty continues to play great hockey.
--Ditto for Tim Brent. What a great addition filling the huge hole of not having a real 4th line center capable of filling half of a PK pairing and holding his own on defensive zone draws.
--The Allen/Gleason pairing is both interesting and playing very well. Unlike your typical big, nasty defenseman, Allen skates pretty well north-south, and when Gleason is playing well he also moves his feet well for the type of player he is. Then you toss in the shot-blocking, willingness to drop the gloves and you have a quality pairing that could have held up in the Norris Division in the 70s or early 80s.
--Brandon Sutter is quietly hitting mid-season form early. He has notched a couple goals now, but even prior to that he was quietly up to his usual sound brand of hockey that wins games without tons of stats to point to.

Finally, I'd be curious to see the Sabres power play for the next couple games. The Canes scored 2 shorthanded goals in addition to a Sutter post on a breakaway, a Staal 1-on-none and another breakaway. They could easily have scored 4 shorthanded, and they did not do it by gambling, they just exploited the Sabres the same way all night. Simple recipe: Be aggressive and pressure up top. If you get the puck on your stick turn and look to move it forward figuring that the Sabres D was probably cheating at least a little meaning any forward pass quickly becomes 1-on-1 and often 2-on-1 if someone else skates. Have the D sit back and defend the front of the net. You would think there would be too much open space between the circles but without that much regular traffic in front of the net it was easy enough for the defense to step into that space when needed. No doubt the video scouts for the next few games saw the obvious problems with the Sabres aggressive pinches combined with their inability to defend any kind of rush with the players playing up top on the power play.

Canes claw their way to 2-2-1.

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Go Canes!

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