"Pete Dawg" With Shut Out: Canes 1, Islanders 0

The Carolina Hurricanes had the ill fortune of losing both of their goalies to injury two weeks ago and Justin Peters was called upon to pick up the slack while having very little goal support since his recall from Charlotte, but the goalie has fought through adversity and battled hard on Thursday night to earn Carolina's first shut out of the season as they defeated the New York Islanders, 1-0 in front of 11,541 at the PNC Arena.

While Peters stopped all 21 shots he faced, this was a complete team effort and team defensive victory as Carolina only allowed single digit shots on goal in every period of the game, (5,7,9).

The team blocked 13 shots, led by Tuomo Ruutu with three.

This was another game where coach Kirk Muller rotated all four lines as the lowest time on ice for the game was Drayson Bowman with 10:01.  It's a good thing the coach did play all four lines because the fourth line of Bowman, Manny Malhotra, and Radek Dvorak were on the ice for the only goal of the game.

Just 6:39 into the game, the puck bounced out near the blueline and Ron Hainsey kept it in, while sweeping the puck back to the goal.  Cagey veteran Dvorak was in the right place and tipped it into the net past Kevin Poulin for the game winner.

Both teams battled back and forth throughout the game but they were unable to light the lamp again.  Peters made some nice saves, especially late in the game as the Islanders put on extra pressure.

The win was the second in a row for the Canes, who will continue their home stand on Saturday night against the Wild.

• Brett Bellemore helped to provide the grit and laid a couple of nice hits on the visitors, as well as dropping the gloves with Matt Martin.  The youngster had another solid game on the blueline.
• Nathan Gerbe once again was an agitator in front of the net, but this night he held back his temper a bit better and waited for his opponent to lose his cool.  Gerbe took another roughing penalty but Travis Hamonic was called for a double roughing as both players went to the box in the third period.   
  
• The Canes officially went 0-2 on the powerplay while holding the Islanders to 0-3.  
  
• The attendance was poor as 11,541 was the lowest number so far this year and perhaps for over two to three seasons.
• The Canes had 24 shots on goal and were led by Ryan Murphy with four.
• Jordan Staal had a team high four hits. Tuomo Ruutu and Jay Harrison had three each.
  
• Eric Staal won 77% of his face offs, (10 of 13).  Malhotra won 57%, (8 of 14).  The team was at 62% for the game.
• Justin Faulk and Andrej Sekera led the way with time on ice with 23:56 and 23:45 respectively.