Sharks survive Hurricanes 4-3; J. Thornton tallies four points while wearing a skirt.

The Hurricanes ended their long six game road trip in San Jose on Saturday night. The boys lost the game, in part because Joe Thornton had an amazing night, but still managed to pick up seven out of a possible twelve points on the road. Not bad.

The Canes played well, but undisciplined early, got down a little in the second, got down a lot in the third, but almost rallied all the way back.

Carolina got goals from Brind'Amour (PP), Staal (SH) and Craig Adams. San Jose got two goals from Cheechoo and one each from Joe Thornton and Nils Ekman.

I won't launch into a diatribe about officiating, but there was a missed high-sticking call early in the third. Sharks keeper Evgeni Nabokov caught CrAdams with the stick, cutting Adams on his nose. That's a double minor, but it went unnoticed. This happens. I'm just saying this because right after this, the Sharks exploded for two goals in 32 seconds. Had they been a man down, who knows what would have happened. I'm just saying.

All griping aside, I have to tip the ole ballcap to Jonathan "what does a train say?" Cheechoo and Joe Thornton. Cheechoo had two goals and an assist (while riding the pine on my fantasy squad) and Joe Thornton had a goal and three assists. If Joe can tally four points in one game, he can do whatever he wants, but I swear it looked like he was wearing his pants unzippered. Fellow Hurricanes blogger Casonblog pointed out a trend that has players wearing their pants like skirts, with the inseam zippers undone. Unfortunately, I can't grab any photos to illustrate my point vis-a-vis J. Thornton, but I'm not making this up.

Good things:

• The Canes were able to kill off a loooooong 5-3 sequence late in the first, and were able to be fairly disciplined after that.
  
• The Canes took advantage of limited power play chances, going one for two.
  
• Eric Staal scored a shorty on a highlight reel goal
  
• Rookie Chad LaRose looked good in his limited ice time. He had an excellent scoring chance denied by Nabokov, and he looked pretty confident out there. Also, he picked up an assist on the CrAdams goal.
  
• the road trip is over

Because I have limited exposure to Western Conference teams, especially those in the Pacific Division, I didn't know that Joe Thornton's cousin Scott is also on the Sharks. It sort of had me thinking about family members who play together. Aside from the Sedin twins in Vancouver and the Niedermayers in Anaheim, I can't think of any on the top of my head. There's the unrelated Adamses on Carolina. In a different direction, there's two unrelated Petr Sykoras playing on different teams (Peter Sykora II was sent back to the Czech Republic, by the way). I know there's all sorts of brothers playing on different teams. Who knows of any other groups of family members playing together?

Up next: a Tuesday night HOME game against the Blackhawks.