Captain Rod Brind'Amour scored his 1,000th career point Saturday night and the Carolina Hurricanes had their first 3rd period come from behind victory this year in Ottawa, beating the Sens 3-2.  The Canes ability to come from behind was proven over and over again last year but was in question so far this year. Saturday night they started the 3rd period down 2-1 but used two 3rd period goals by Ray Whitney to overcome the temporary deficit. After the Canes initially fell behind 2-0, Erik Cole was able to bang in a goal off the back of ex-Cane Martin Gerber to start off the Canes scoring in the 2nd period. Rod Brind'Amour's initial shot hit the post but bounced to Cole who was in perfect position for the rebound at the side of the net. That point was the magic number 1,000 for Captain Rod and the Ottawa PA guy announced the accomplishment to the classy Senator crowd who gave Rod a nice ovation.  Cole and Whitney both had 3 points each while Cam Ward finished with 24 saves for the win. The main story of this game though was special teams. The Canes powerplay scored twice while it was so ineffective the previous game and the penalty kill rocked! They killed off two Senator 5 on 3's and several other penalties rarely allowing a decent shot on goal. Ward was excellent in net as well.  Discounting the penalties, this was a game which the Canes pretty much dominated in the Ottawa end. (Canes 40 shots, Sens 26). The Ottawa powerplay was 0-7 which helped to keep it in last place in the league.Â
The defense looked good that night with Commodore and Wallin logging most of the minutes with 22:59 and 19:32 respectively. Wesley was a rock on the penalty kill. Hedican had a very good game as well. Babchuk blocked a couple of shots during one sequence and even Hutch looked good, upping his playing time to over 13 minutes. David Tanabe was the only defenseman who had issues. He had a costly turnover early and finished with a -1 while only logging 1:41 minutes of playing time. The team looked good as a whole though and deserved the win. While Ward, Cole, and Whitney were the obvious stars, Bubba's Star of the game will go to Andrew Ladd who hopefully turned a corner with Saturday night's performance. I noticed much more intensity and effort in Andrew's game that night and he was back to his hard checking self. Coach must have noticed as well because Ladd's playing time was up from 4 minutes in the previous game to over 10 against the Sens. Keep up the hard work Andrew and good things will come!
In other news, ex Canes Captain Ron "The Franchise" Francis agreed to be the Hurricanes new Director of Player Development. This should benefit the Hurricanes organization as well as help Francis transition his skills from the ice to the front office. Congratulations and good work to both sides on getting this mutually beneficial arrangement done! For the Canes official announcement, check here:
Ron Francis Joins Canes Front Office
You may have noticed some subtle changes to the blog. I've added an MP3 player and a song list to play if anyone would like to try those. (on the bottom right sidebar). I've also started a new section, "Player of the Month" in which I will choose a deserving Hurricane and post various stats and information about them. Also due to Rod Brind'Amour's recent accomplishments, I'm working on a tribute page for him in which I hope to have some rare video footage of various stages of his career along with his stats and highlights.  I'm trying to have that completed within the week, so please check back for that.
The Canes travel to New Jersey to take on the Devils tomorrow night which is election day. I'll have a brief preview of that game on the blog tomorrow.Â
Let me join in with my fellow bloggers, CasonBlog and others, don't forget to vote!! While I know that there are slimeballs, crooks, and liars on both sides of the aisle and voting can seem like a waste because sometimes there doesn't seem to be a good choice, you still need to overlook that and vote for whom you think is the better person. What's the old saying? "Use it or lose it people!" In this day and age it would not surprise me if at some point our government determined that allowing people the right to vote was a danger to national security and they revoked that right! See you at the polls!            Â
Grand Funk Railroad