canes lose big; avery is a punk

Sean Avery is a goddamn punk.
There. I said it.

The Rangers defeated the Hurricanes 4-2 on Wednesday night, and showed their ass doing it.

The home team did a marvelous job of shutting down the Carolina power play, which has been stagnant lately. They had to kill a full five minute penalty in the second, plus a minute of six-on-three in the final minute of the game. The Rangers PK should get the first star of the game.

Carolina started the game with only 11 forwards and ended the game with only nine. Their power play struggles notwithstanding, this is no way to win hockey games.

Midway through the second period with the score tied at one, Matt Cullen was blasted at center ice by Colton Orr with a marginally late but very violent open ice hit. The puck was still in the vicinity, but Orr had to come from lower Manhattan to deliver the hit. Cullen was knocked out of the game, requiring stitches below his nose. Orr was given a five minute major for interference (a new rule) and a game misconduct. Mike Commodore jumped to Cullen's defense, but the fight was short and uneventful. On the ensuing major power play, Carolina was unable to get anything going, and it was probably the turning point of the game.

Carolina would later take a 2-1 lead on a different power play, but at that point they were down to ten forwards and they weren't looking all that great.

The Rangers exploded for three goals in the first half of the third period, but it wasn't quite out of reach.

With just under six minutes to play, Sean Avery delivered a hard forechecking hit to Glen Wesley into the boards behind Cam Ward. There was a bit of a disturbance first between Avery and Wesley. Then there was a lot of pushing and shoving by all players on both teams. For no reason, Sean Avery went after Trevor Letowski, but nothing came of that. It seemed like cooler heads were prevailing, but Avery chose to also go at Andrew Ladd. This was a mutual thing, except the linesman weren't going to allow it. The whistles were blowing, the linesmen were restraining both players. It should have been over.
Avery took at least two, probably three sucker punch shots at Ladd with the linesman between them. Ladd never threw a punch. Somehow, Ladd was given a game 10 minute misconduct penalty to match that of Avery. And Carolina was down to nine skaters. It should have surely been a five minute advantage for Carolina, but the only extra penalty was to Avery for instigating one of those goofy interference penalties -- preventing Glen Wesley from picking up the stick he had dropped. Avery was given a game misconduct penalty on top of it all, but those don't affect the length of the power play.
It was of no matter since Carolina couldn't convert the power play anyway, but it might have been different with more time.

Jaromir Jagr had two goals.

Scott Walker scored a shorthanded goal for the Canes. It was their first shorty of the year.

Sean Avery will be a marked man the next time these two teams play. A clean fight is one thing. A marginally clean hit is one thing. Sucker punches are another thing entirely. This will be looked at by the league, and he will receive a short suspension.

I'm too tired and too pissed off to search around for precedence on this kind of thing. One side of me thinks that because he threw punches after the linesmen had stepped in, it'll be multiple games. The realist in me says that it'll be one game.

Orr won't and shouldn't be suspended. Unless he already had a game misconduct in hand.

Above the animosity I'm feeling towards Avery, I'm really concerned about Cully. If he has to miss any time, it'll be a huge blow to this already hurting team.

I've said before that Avery is a guy with a lot of brawn and a bit of talent to go with it. It's a shame that he plays the way he does, agitating and instigating and traipsing around the borders of legal play.

Carolina is off Thursday, and hopefully there will be good news about Matt Cullen.

Canes - Kitties, Ronnie to enter hall

Tonight will be a bigger night for the Hurricanes off the ice than it will on it. Simultaneously, Ron Francis will be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame and the Hurricanes will be in Sunrise taking on the Panthers.

There is nothing I can say about Ronnie Franchise that hasn't been said before and more eloquently than I ever could. He is a paragon of class, a model of leadership and a perfect example of what a teammate, brother and father should be. While he won two Cups with the Penguins, he spent the majority of his career with the Whaler/Canes and holds the franchise record in all offensive categories. He will, without ever having received fanfare, enter the Hall of Fame with the second most assists (1249) in NHL history, the 21st most goals (549) and the fourth most points (1798).

TSN, NHL.com, The Raleigh News & Observer all chime in about Francis. As always, Luke Decock's piece in the N&O is well worth the price of admission. Also check out the list of 151 different players Ronnie gave goal assists to. Jaro Jagr tops that list with 110 assists received. Then there's the list of 157 different goalies he scored against. St. Patrick Roy tops that list with 16 goals against.

The induction ceremony starts at 7:30. So does the game. The game will be nationally televised on Versus, while the induction ceremony will be on the NHL Network. While NHLN has made it into the Raleigh market, it has unfortunately not made it into my market. I won't be able to watch. I guess I'll catch the tape of it later.

Meanwhile, the Hurricanes will be in South Florida for the first time since Halloween night, when the South Florida reporters complained about diving, and referee Brad Watson responded by whistling the Canes for two diving penalties. Carolina lost that game 4-2, but returned home to beat the Panthers by the same score in Raleigh three days later.

This time, the Panthers writers are mum. They're too busy moaning about the Panthers recent losses to the Thrashers (4-1) and the Lightning (3-1).

No word on who the officials will be tonight Mick "Helmet" McGeough will be the lead official tonight.

Ray Whitney enters the game with a nine game points streak.

Brett McLean and Richard Zednick are out for the Panthers. In their stead, they have called up Stefan Meyer and Tanner Glass from Rochester. Carolina only wishes that Olli Jokinen were out. He's been lethal against Carolina, and will be their #1 concern.

Canes defeat Blueshirts, take 6 of 8 points on homestand.

On Wednesday night, the Hurricanes closed out their four game home stand with a 2-1 win over the Rangers. The boys took six of a possible eight standings points during the home stand and have closed Atlanta's lead in the Southeast to four points. After getting off to a very rocky start, and taking some time to find itself, the team was told by coach Laviolette that they needed to win all four games. Unfortunately, the Sabres had other plans on Monday night. "Three out of four," said Laviolette, is "okay".

There was a lot of talk about how the Canes needed to come out with at least six points, and that certain players were already on the proverbial trading block, and that certain players who wear an "A" on their chest would have a chance to keep their job. All of this talk, of course, was coming from message boards, bloggers, and Bucky Gleason, who is the Buffalo News' answer to Ned the Head.

In an article in the News on Tuesday, Gleason pointed to one game of insignificant ice time for Kevyn Adams and suggested that it was a trend spelling the end for him. I could go into detail about how Gleason is missing the boat on this, but I doubt that Gleason actually watched the game in question, or even referred to the shift chart, or is even aware of the fact that K-Ads is a fourth line center.

There's all sorts of crazy rumors flying around, though. I've heard so many different trade scenarios. Every one of them involves David Tanabe and either John Grahame, Kevyn Adams, or a pick. One completely insane nonsensical rumor I heard was David Tanabe and Kevyn Adams for Daniel Alfredsson. You see how crazy that is?

One really interesting rumor (really just an idea, I suppose) was David Tanabe and parts to the Flyers for Freddy Meyer. I like that idea.

All the trade talk aside, the Canes knew that they had to win on Wednesday. Although it wasn't pretty, they did it.

We thought we were being given a break from Holly Wilver when they announced that Miss North Carolina was singing the National Anthem. I actually thought that Miss NC did a pretty lousy job. She tried too hard to opera it up. I don't know what ever happened to just singing the damn song straight up without being all showy.
The guys from 850:The Blog were there, and in their liveblog of the game, they pretty much hit it on the head:

she ain’t winning the big crown unless the plans on singing while twirling flaming batons and riding a unicycle.

Due to the fact that the Rangers had played the night previous, Henny Lundqvist got the night off and we got to see our old pal "Shady 80" in the pipes. It became a sort of homecoming party, as there were five former Canes and two more former Whalers on the Rangers squad. Matt Cullen and Aaron Ward both played last season in Carolina. Kevin Weekes played between 2002 and 2004. Defenseman Marek Malik played here for almost five seasons, and defenseman Sandis Ozolinsh played a season and a half.

Craig Adams got the Canes on the board early, and it looked like we would be off to the races. He picked up a short rebound of an Anton Babchuk shot and sent it past Kevin Weekes at the 2:51 mark. Babs with the first assist and Chad "Sharpie" LaRose with the secondary.

I think this officiating crew was in a hurry to get back to the hotel to watch a Seinfeld rerun or something. They missed a bunch of calls on both sides in the first period, and they only called a total of seven penalties. Only three against the Canes. Carolina has been terribly undisciplined lately, and although I believe they were cleaner and more focused, they weren't that clean. There was a lot of clutching, grabbing, punching and tackling by BOTH teams that went unpenalized. Whereas last season the officials did a great job with being consistant, they're not so much this season. One night, they call ticky tacky stuff, and the next night, there's more clutching and grabbing than a high school prom.

Midway through the first, Cam Ward showed why he won the Conn Smythe and why he's the clear #1 goalie in Carolina. He was staring at one of the most feared things in all of hockey: Jaromir Jagr was barreling down the center of the ice on a breakaway, no Canes in sight. Cam was patient and calm, forcing Jagr to make his move first. Jagr waited too long and ended up putting it right in Wards pads. Cam was as steady as could be, where a lot of other goalies would've panicked and overcommitted.

Late in the first, a tiny little skirmish developed in the southeast corner. It wasn't that big of a deal. No punches, no penalties. The only reason I bring it up is that nine players jumped in. The one player who didn't jump in to defend his teammates: David Tanabe. It's little stuff like that, and getting in Brindy's way the other night. Then there's the big stuff. The lazy penalties, the missed assignments, the times that he screens Ward out causing goals against. I'll get to that later.

Nothing at all happened in the rest of the first. The first penalty of the game wasn't called until the 20th minute, and it was when Malik flat-out tackled Erik Cole in neutral ice.

At 3:40 of the second, the refs had no choice but to blow their whistles when Anton Babchuk shot the puck over the glass for delay of game. The next 10 minutes, nothing happened. The teams each took one obvious hooking penalty. One more blatant hook by the Canes, and we finally got some action.

At 16:02 of the second, Jaromir Jagr scored his 599th career goal on a pretty one-timer from the left face off dot. Brendan Shanahan and Martin Straka got the assists on the power play goal. On the play, David Tanabe was terrible. Jagr was all by himself at the top of the left face off circle, and Avi positioned himself at just the right spot to make it impossible for Cam Ward to see the shot.

Right on the third period face off, we saw the game's sixth penalty. It was a double-minor to Eric Staal for high sticking Matt Cullen. Inadvertent, but still careless, and a no-brainer of a call. There was only one more penalty in the game, and it was a marginal trip called on Jagr.

At 13:55 of the third, after the Canes had hit four posts earlier in the game, Rod Brind'Amour hit another post, but the puck bounced in that time. Off a draw that Brind'Amour lost down in the Rags end, Viva got control of the puck behind Weekes. Instead of attempting a wrap-around, Williams spotted Brindy alone in the high slot, and Brindy beat Weekes high on the stick side from there. That was the only assist, and the goal turned out to be the game winner.

Once again, Erik Cole was hitting everything in sight. This time, however, he did it all within the rules of the game. Sometimes it actually scares me, but there was nothing dangerous in this game.

With our continuing injuries to the blue line, and the shaky play of David Tanabe, Anton Babchuk has seen a huge jump in ice time. He's been really good, too. Much more than just a "fill-in", he's seen increased responsibilities and is doing just fine as a #3 or #4 defenseman. He's very seldomly in the wrong place, is very positionally sound, and is showing to have a ton of offensive upside. On the CrAdams goal, he made it happen by joining the rush and getting the initial shot on Weekes.

The "official" three stars went to Cam Ward (third), Chad LaRose (second) and Rod Brind'Amour (first). I didn't quite see it that way, and it was really hard to pick, but mine are more like:

Third Star Anton Babchuk, CAR. 20:10 TOI, +2, 3 blocked shots, 1 assist.
Second Star Jaromir Jagr, NYR. 24:49 TOI, 5 SOG, 1 goal, 599 career goals.
First Star Cam Ward, CAR. 23 saves, Win.