Samson Shines: Flyers 2, Hurricanes 1

The Carolina Hurricanes battled pretty evenly with one of the toughest teams in the league, but lost to the Philadelphia Flyers, 2-1 on Tuesday night in front of 14,511 at the RBC.

Recent call up Jerome Samson scored the lone goal for the Hurricanes.

After an evenly played scoreless first period, the Flyers would take the lead 4:20 into the second when Brayden Schenn knocked in the rebound of a Wayne Simmonds shot. It was Schenn's second goal of the season.

But midway through the second, Samson drew a penalty as he skated into the offensive zone. Coach Kirk Miller rewarded the forward with some powerplay time, and Samson did not disappoint as he rifled in a Justin Faulk rebound to tie things up. It was Samson's first career NHL goal.

The youngster created the play when he won a puck battle behind the net and found Faulk open at the blueline. Later in the game, he was rewarded again as he was moved up to Eric Staal's line. He had a couple of other good chances as well and drew praise from his coach after the game.

"I thought he had opportunities tonight," said Muller. "Some were just by hockey sense of finding the right area and some were just him creating opportunities."

Philadelphia would take the lead for good early in the third when Sean Couturier beat Cam Ward with a perfect, uncontested shot in the upper corner. The teams battled evenly the rest of the game as that goal proved to be the game winner.

Overall, the head coach was happier with this performance than he was in Nashville.

"We battled, we played for the most part, head to head with them," Muller said. "We had our opportunities, we didn't capitalize, but I liked our effort a lot more tonight."

The Canes travel tomorrow to Tampa Bay for another game against the Lightning on Thursday night,

Game Notes:

• The Canes had 36 shots on goal led by Samson with five. Faulk was next with four.
  
• Jaroslav Spacek took a puck to the face area in the second period and left the game. There was no update on his condition after the game.
  
• The Canes won 52% of the game's faceoffs. (Staal 55%, Sutter 39%, Jokinen 67%, Brent 40%)
• Gleason led the team with 24:31 of TOI. Samson played 13:26, but more importantly, he finally got some powerplay time.
  
• The team blocked 11 shots, led by Bryan Allen with three.
• Patrick Dwyer, Brandon Sutter, and Anthony Stewart had three hits each. The team was credited with 21 in this game, after having nine in Nashville.
• Cam Ward played a solid game and made 35 saves on 37 shots. Bobrovsky got third star of the game for making 35 saves on 36 shots.

Post game interviews: