The Carolina Hurricanes lost for the 11th time in their last 14 games with a 5-1 defeat at the hands of the New Jersey Devils Thursday night at PNC Arena.
The Hurricanes (8-13-4) lacked a much-needed sense of urgency and were outworked all night long by the Devils (13-10-2) who appeared to be the much hungrier team.
The Canes got off to an absolutely abysmal start in the first period. They were slower to almost every loose puck, beaten in almost every board battle and outshot 7-1 by the Devils in the first 10 minutes.
“We needed to have a more competitive edge to our game and it wasn’t there to start,” Hurricanes forward Eric Staal said. “We just didn’t have enough compete. We weren’t on our toes. They were on us, spending more time in our end and fighting to get pucks under control.”
Luckily for the Hurricanes netminder Eddie Lack was sharp early, keeping them in a game in which they probably deserved to be down by at least a couple goals at intermission.
Carolina appeared to grab some momentum in the second half of the first period while on the power play. Even though they didn’t score, they were able to register three shots on goal as the NHL-worst power play looked better than it has most of the season.
New Jersey put a stop to any bit of Canes momentum a few minutes later, scoring the only goal of the first period on a beautiful cross-ice feed from forward Tyler Kennedy to goal-scorer, forward Mike Cammalleri.
Things only got worse for the Canes in the second period as they continued to be outplayed in close to every phase of the game.
New Jersey forward Adam Henrique scored a beautiful backhanded goal on the power play after completely skating past Canes defenders who were stagnant at the blue line.
Devils forward Stephen Gionta scored his first goal of the season on a wraparound goal to give New Jersey a comfortable 3-0 lead.
Forward Brad Malone gave the Canes a little bit of life thanks to his second goal of the season with 2:24 left in the second period but the Devils would answer shortly thereafter.
“[Malone] provided a spark there,” Hurricanes head coach Bill Peters said. “We didn’t have a handful of guys competing at a high, high level, and he was one of the ones who was.”
Carolina once again gave a New Jersey player his first goal of the season as forward Jacob Josefson fired a bullet past Lack with about a minute left in the second period to give the Devils a 4-1 advantage.
Cammalleri scored his second of the night in the third period to seal a 5-1 New Jersey win.
The Hurricanes return to action Saturday night at PNC Arena against the top team in the Eastern Conference, the Montreal Canadiens.
“We’ve got to be better than we were there,” Peters said. “I think we let each other down as a group here this evening.”
