Carolina's road trip continues

On Friday and Saturday, the Canes will play the Thrashers and Penguins respectively as their two week road trip continues. It will be the second time in this young season that the Canes have had games on back-to-back nights with travel involved.

Both teams are playing very well and will likely give Carolina fits. While the Canes are still trying to find themselves, especially on special teams, those two teams are high-flying. If Carolina fails to win one of those games, they will earn the undubious distinction of matching the worst start by a reigning champ in the history of the NHL. This article explains how bad Carolina's start has been when stacked up against other reigning champs throughout history. Carolina is now 0-3-1. The 1946 Maple Leafs got off to a 0-5-1 start after winning the Cup in 1945. Those 1946 Leafs failed to qualify for the playoffs, but would go on to win the Cup four of the next five years.

I'm sure that the Canes will snap out of this funk at some point. Will it be tonight? Probably not. Tomorrow? Maybe. They will definitely need some scoring from outside the "new guy" line, though. Brind'Amour, Whitney and Viva are all goal-less, and Staal and Cole only have one each. Viva has three assists, but we'll need him to start lighting the lamp.

At this point, who's in net is immaterial. The Canes aren't scoring goals and they're not taking advantage of power play situations.

If anyone is wondering, there will be no (repeat -- NO) fireworks when the Canes visit Mellon Arena on Saturday night. Although Erik Cole has been pretty vocal about being eager to play the Pens and to lay hits on Brooks Orpik, that opportunity won't present itself. Orpik underwent hand surgery last week and is expected to be out of the lineup until at least late October.

I'm working tonight and DVRing the game. Hopefully, I'll have something good to write about by Saturday morning.