The Carolina Hurricanes came out on home ice in front of 16,837 on Monday night and totally dominated the Washington Capitals, 5-0, in what was probably their best game of the season.
The Hurricanes out-hit, out-shot, and just about "out-everythinged" the opposition on this night in a game that had fights, a shorthanded goal, and the first career NHL shutout for young goalie, Justin Peters.
The Canes jumped out to an early 1-0 lead, 3:41 into the game when Justin Faulk got behind the defense for another powerplay goal, his 6th overall goal of the season. Just 1:18 later, Anthony Stewart took a tipped Eric Staal pass and ripped in past Tomas Vokoun to make it 2-0 and send Vokoun to an early exit.
The score stayed at 2-0 until late in the period when Andreas Nodl scored on an odd man rush with just 30 seconds left to make it 3-0. Brandon Sutter set up the goal with a perfect pass.
The Hurricanes outshot the Caps 16-5 in that period and would continue the onslaught the rest of the way.
Staal would score a shorthanded goal 5:56 into the second. The goal made the Carolina Captain the franchise leader with 12 career shorties.
Staal scored again in the third after the Hurricanes kept the puck in the Washington zone for a prolonged period as time after time someone would pick up a clearing attempt at the blueline. Finally, Jaroslav Spacek kept the puck in, found Staal alone in the slot, and the captain buried his shot.
The home crowd was loud and proud throughout and gave the team a long standing ovation near the end of regulation. This was the first contest of the current six game home stand. Next up is Anaheim on Thursday night.
Game Notes:
- The Canes outshot the Caps 40-17. Staal had six shots while Skinner and Tlusty had 5 each.
- Carolina outhit the Caps 24-16. Nodl had a team high four.
- The team had 20 takeaways compared to four for the Caps. Sutter, Tlusty, and Skinner each had four.
- Derek Joslin did well in his new role on the fourth line and dropped the gloves twice with Matt Hendricks. He was called for roughing the first time, but the second time five minute majors were handed out.
- Justin Faulk also dropped the gloves with Troy Brouwer and held his own well in his first career NHL fight. Faulk drew high praise from his coach, but Jamie McBain had a team high 22:36 of ice time in this affair.
- The team had 19 blocked shots led by Bryan Allen with four.
- Staal won 61% of his faceoffs and the team won 57%.
Post game interviews: