Eat Sleep Leafs

Forwards
Blake Mitchell Kessel
Ponikarovsky Grabovski Kulemin
Hagman Stajan Stempniak
Primeau Wallin Orr

Defense
Kaberle Komisarek
Beauchemin White
Schenn Finger

Goalie
Gustavsson

Scratches: Mayers, Rosehill, Exelby

 

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Hurricanes defenseman Joe Corvo displayed a look of sheer devastation as he explained the ills of his team's disastrous ten-game losing streak.

 

From work ethic to handling adversity to bad bounces, nothing has gone right in Carolina, including an upper-body injury to Eric Staal that will likely sideline him for two to four weeks.

 

Still the Canes played well in a 3-0 loss to Phoenix on Wednesday, and as Corvo explained the team is finally starting to realize “that we have to work”.

 

Carolina fired 21 shots at Tomas Vokoun in the first period of Wednesday’s defeat, and did not score. Corvo said that at one point in the period, he tried to rip the hinges off the bench door as he made his way off the ice.

 

Frustration, indeed.

 

Last year, Carolina shocked many in the hockey world by advancing to the Conference finals against Pittsburgh, but they did so with an emphasis on their hard work, something that was lacking early in the season according to Corvo.

 

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The Canes have scored just 17 goals in their ten-game slide.

“As with any team that’s struggling it hasn’t been one thing,” coach Paul Maurice said.

 

“Our penalty-kill struggled out of the gate, and it got to be very, very good. Our power-play struggled and then it got better, and our five on five game started to struggle. So it hasn’t been any one consistent theme throughout except for the fact that as a team we are not scoring enough goals to take pressure off other areas of the game.”

Much has been made over the 29th and 30th place teams squaring off on Friday, to which Maurice replied “9-8, that’s the prediction.”

“He hasn’t watched us play much if he thinks we’re capable of scoring eight or nine goals,” Ron Wilson mused in response.

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Goal-less since October 12th, Jason Blake seems enthused to be playing alongside Phil Kessel.

“I had a lot of fun last game,” a smiling Blake said Friday morning. “He’s fast…really fast, so it’s nice.”

Still with just one goal in 13 games, the frustration is starting to set in.

“It wears on you a little bit,” he said, “[but] I think I’m doing a lot of good things out there, just not getting the breaks. Then again I always say ‘you create your own breaks, no one’s going to hand it to you.’”

 

"I think he's been making a lot of things happen," Ron Wilson said. "Now it's just finding a way for the puck to get in the net."

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Jeff Finger was a healthy scratch for six straight games, but he’ll return tonight against Carolina, with Garnet Exelby sitting in his place.

There was no sulking from Finger at any point, including prior to the game on Friday.

“For me, I think it’s a matter of putting things in perspective,” Finger said. “In the end, we’re all still doing what we love to do, whether you’re playing or not. It’s tough for other people to maybe believe that. But I wouldn’t pick any other thing to do whether I’m playing or not.”

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John Mitchell hasn’t scored yet this season, but maybe more importantly his play defensively has improved.

Last season Mitchell was a team-worst (-16), and Ron Wilson wasn’t shy before the season to single that out as an area of needed improvement for Mitchell.

In the first four games, it didn’t happen as Mitchell registered a (-5). But in the last nine games, he has a solid even rating, meaning the attention to detail in his own end has been there, even if the scoring has not.


-J.Siegel

Follow me on Twitter: jonas640