Canes come home to face more must-wins
RALEIGH -- So what does a hockey team do after a two-game, "must-win" road trip that turns into a pair of stunning defeats?
It has to come home and get back on the winning track, of course. And it has to know that "must win" isn't a clich? any more.
With five games left in the regular season, the margin of error for they reigning Stanley Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes is just about gone.
Currently in 11th place in the Eastern Conference and two points plus a tiebreaker out of that eighth and final playoff spot, the Canes could use all 10 remaining available points.
If the Hurricanes can go 5-0, they'll probably squeeze their way into the playoffs. If they go 4-0-1 and get nine points, their chances may still be pretty good. But if they lose any game in regulation or come up short a couple of times in overtime, that's where the wishing and hoping starts.
So as Hurricanes coach Peter Laviolette said recently, his team has to be in playoff mode now or it may just not matter.
The Canes begin that final five-game stretch tonight at 7:30 p.m. at the RBC Center against Southeast Division rival Tampa Bay Lightning, who are two points and a tiebreaker ahead of Carolina in the seven-team scramble for the four remaining playoff spots in the Eastern Conference.
Both teams are on two-game losing streaks, though the Hurricanes' 5-4-1 mark over the last 10 games is a bit better than Tampa Bay's 4-6-0. Carolina is 3-2-1 in the series this season.
"Nobody's happy with the last two games," Laviolette said about Tuesday's 6-1 loss at Toronto followed by Wednesday's 5-1 defeat at last-place Philadelphia. "I don't think you'll find anyone trying to make a case that we played well and got robbed on the scoreboard."
Worse than the losses may have been the injury to alternate captain Glen Wesley, their defensive stalwart who missed the Philadelphia game with a lower leg injury and was scheduled to undergo X-rays on Thursday. Wesley probably is out tonight, while fellow veteran defenseman Bret Hedican likely will miss his 12th straight game with a lower-body injury.
"It was a tough trip," defenseman Mike Commodore said after Thursday's skate at the RecZone. "We got spanked, and it's nice to be back home. Any time you get outscored 11-2 in back-to-back games, there isn't much good to say.
"We've got to win. I don't think anybody's thinking about going 5-0. We just want to go 1-0, and we've got a tough game [against Tampa Bay]."
Every game left is against a division rival, with two against the Lightning, two against Florida and one against first-place Atlanta.
"The league wanted to make the division rivalries more important, and they accomplished that," forward Erik Cole said of the schedule, which features four home and four away games against each division member. "We know those opponents pretty well now."
