Recap: Lightning 2, Hurricanes 1

The Carolina Hurricanes fell behind in the first period once again and could not overcome the deficit as they dropped another contest to the Tampa Bay Lightning, 2-1 on Saturday night.

The loss gives the Canes a 2-7-1 record in their last 10 games.

At 8:50 into the opening period, Ondrej Palat stole the puck from Tim Gleason behind the net and fed it to Nikita Kucherov who beat Cam Ward with a shot, high glove side.  The Canes were outshot that period 12-9 and got off to their traditional slow start.

After a scoreless second period, the Bolts made the score 2-0, 4:53 into the third on a shot by Alex Killorn and that would be the eventual game winner.

Andrej Sekera made a game out of it with his second goal of the season later in the third, but that would be the end of the scoring for Carolina.

The Hurricanes were called for an atypical seven minor penalties, including a high sticking infraction on Eric Staal with just three minutes and change left in the game, but they were able to kill off all of the Tampa powerplays.

For their part, the Canes went 0-3 on the powerplay themselves.

The team will hold a practice on Sunday and will next face the Montreal Canadiens at the PNC on Monday night.

Game Notes:

• The Canes were outshot 38-26 for the game and they were outshot in each individual period.  Victor Rask and Staal each had four to lead their team.
• Carolina had 17 blocked shots led by Justin Faulk who had eight.
• Tampa Bay also missed the net 19 times for a total of 74 attempts.  The Canes had eight misses and six shots blocked for a total of 40 attempts, so the Bolts dominated much of this game.
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