The Canes just needed to scratch out any kind of win to get on the board, relieve the mounting pressure and get on with the season. The details are not nearly as important as the result.

The goal outburst was huge obviously, but there was also a noticeable difference in intensity and desperation level especially in the defensive zone and also a significant decrease in glaring turnovers.

This was exactly the 2012-13 Carolina Hurricanes that I pictured last summer (seems like ages ago) after the Jordan Staal trade and subsequent signing of Alexander Semin. Suddenly the Canes were deep offensively with enough to stock 3 lines with scoring capabilities and to put up 5 goals many nights. But with Corvo in and Allen out, they also looked capable of giving up...hopefully only 4. So that was about what we saw tonight. The Canes offensive talent came in waves with EStaal's line kicking in 3 goals (all by him) and Jordan's 3 as well (cheating a little and counting Faulk's shorthanded goal).

A few quick player notes:
--Joni Pitkanen had an incredibly good game that the media will probably miss in trying to hold to a word count and credit all the scoring plays. The media voters always gets mesmerized by the high volume of scoring plays, but he should have been either 2nd star behind EStaal or maybe 3rd behind Skinner too at worst. He was especially good in the 1st period when the game was tight including great work on PK.

--Jamie McBain had a solid 1st game. I have to imagine he keeps his spot for now.

--Cam Ward. He still seems to be fighting it a bit giving up some juicy rebounds, but he battled and as noted earlier, when you start 0-2 game 3 is really about results.

--Jeff Skinner. In addition to the crazy skating tricks and great hands, he is starting to develop a Ray Whitney-like craftiness that is making him even more dangerous. The wraparound goal was the result of reading the defenseman before he even made a move, picking his pocket and at the same time positioning his feet to get very quickly around the front of the net for the wraparound goal.

--Zac Dalpe was another like Pitkanen who had a quietly solid game contributing 2 assists in only about 9 minutes of ice time. I don't have time to dig through the shift chart, but my wild guess is that his ice time was limited by the volume of special teams play since he misses JStaal's shifts on both penalty kill and power play. Could also be that he is still recovering from the flu or whatever he had earlier in the week.

We do this again tomorrow in Buffalo. I don't know why the NHL doesn't schedule more of these "fair" back-to-backs where both teams play the night before (not necessarily each other) and travel instead of the seemingly more common event where 1 team plays and travels while the other team watches them on TV the night before.

I would have to imagine that Coach Muller will keep the pairings and line combos pretty similar unless he wants to reinsert a fresh Corvo possibly in Sanguinetti's spot - probably not. My hunch is that he will get Ellis into the mix in net with the back-to-back.

For a quick heads up when I post a Canes blog, follow me on Twitter at CarolinaMatt63.

Go Canes!

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