Opportunity Lost—

While the Canadians were doing the Canes dirty work of beating up on the Thrash, the Canes sputtered like an engine that lost a cylinder last night against the Washington Capitals. Johnny Grahame “Cracker” made some good saves and kept the team in the game through a first period that saw Washington outshoot Carolina 17 to 11 and the only damage on the scoreboard was the fluke goal scored off a highstick of David Tanabe. Two games and two fluky goals – one for and one against.
Take that goal away and this game could have possibly gone into overtime. Alexander Semin scored the power play goal in the second – Erik Cole gets the equalizer. Semin scores again – Eric Staal gets the game tying talley. John Grahame stays in net and Chris Clark does not get the empty net goal. But hey, win some and lose some – lets just hope that this team can get it together for the stretch run that in my mind begins Saturday night at the RBC Center at half past eight.
Look for Cam Ward in net, lines to be changed, and weird bounces since NC State hosts Duke in a basketball game earlier in the afternoon. No television (or at least not locally) – thank goodness for Center Ice!