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Once again the Carolina Hurricanes outshot their opponents by a wide margin but skated away as losers as they fell to the red hot Washington Capitals, 3-1 on Thursday night at the Verizon Center.
The Canes had 14 shots on goal before the Caps even had one to start things off in the first period but were only able to light the lamp once for their efforts. They ended up out-shooting the Caps 44-31 for the game. Caps goalie, Braden Holtby made 43 saves, a career high for the win.
Jeff Skinner scored the only Carolina goal as he knocked in a rebound in the crease area during a 4-on-3 opportunity for the Canes. The goal came 5:01 into the first period.
The Caps came back hard in the second period and would score twice to take the lead. First, Troy Brouwer scored a powerplay goal at 8:08 into the period as he one-timed a Mike Ribeiro pass. Then about two minutes later, Mike Green made a beauty of a move to beat the defense then roofed one past Justin Peters.
The rest of the way it was a battle as things got chippy from time to time, right up to the final empty netter by Brouwer. The Canes did not give up as they hit the post a couple of times and Jordan Staal hit the crossbar once on a near miss, but they could not buy a break in this one.
The team will travel back home for a match against the Bruins on Saturday night.
Game Notes:
- It's obvious that these two teams do not like each other as there was much talk back and forth after the whistle and chippiness until the very end. Even after Brouwer scored the empty netter he had words for Alexander Semin and a couple of other Canes while skating away.
- Eric Staal led the way with nine shots on goal and Semin had eight. Both had about 25 minutes of ice time, which led the team.
- Nicolas Blanchard dropped the gloves with Matt Hendricks and did well in the short bout. He also had four hits in just over seven minutes of ice time.
- For post game audio, check out Canes PR.