Hurricanes 3, Coyotes 0

The Carolina Hurricanes finally broke through and earned their first win of the season with a well-played 3-0 victory over the Arizona Coyotes on Saturday night.

The battle between the two last place teams from each conference was watched before a small crowd of 10,870 at the PNC Arena.

Cam Ward not only earned the shutout for Carolina, but he also was given a fireman's helmet by his coach, as the coach's player of the game.  Bill Peters said that he had been waiting for awhile to give out the award and felt that the team won the game primarily because of Ward.

"Ward gave us that chance to play with the lead.  That penalty kill he made there was huge," said the coach.

Elias Lindholm scored two goals in the first period, both on rebounds, to lead the home team in scoring.  They were the first two goals of the season for Lindholm.

Jiri Tlusty made the score 3-0 in the second period when he was also able to knock home a rebound on Arizona goalie, Mike Smith.

It was Tlusty's sixth goal of the season, which leads the team.

The Hurricanes showed good balance in this contest and dominated much of the play at both ends, while outshooting their foes in the first two periods, 12-6 and 13-8.  Before this game, the team had only led at any given time for 12 minutes and change for the entire season, (eight games or 480 plus minutes).

The team will not take a morning skate on Sunday before their early 5 p.m. start against the Los Angeles Kings.  Peters said that he would have to speak with his other coaches and the trainer before making a decision on the lineup and starting goalie for that game.

Alexander Semin was scratched this game and might be scratched for the next one as well.  Peters will make that decision tomorrow.

Game Notes:

• Justin Faulk and Andrej Sekera were back to being one and two for ice time with 22:28 and 22:26 respectively.  Zach Boychuk was low man with 7:12.
• The Canes outshot the Coyotes 35-25.  Gerbe, Staal, and Faulk had five shots each. 
  
• Tim Gleason had a team high five hits.  Riley Nash was next with four.