Southeastern hockey showdown at RBC Center

By Chris Nicolini
Sports/Web Editor

Raleigh - The Carolina Hurricanes hosted the first of
six regular season match-ups against the Atlanta Thrashers at the RBC Center on Wednesday, Nov. 13, with the game ending in a 5-1 Canes victory.

The night before the Thrasher game the Hurricanes
lost badly, 7-1, to the Washington Capitals, but
showed team leadership and resilience bouncing
back the next evening to come up with the 5-1
‘Thrashing.’

“We needed the effort; we needed to come back.
Atlanta is a very quick team and they can really
frustrate you with their forecheck. But I thought our defense did a great job moving the puck and
reversing the flow away from the pressure,” said
Carolina Hurricanes Head Coach Paul Maurice.

The Canes struck first and early, with Erik Cole
scoring 24 seconds into the first period, nicely
finessing the puck above the left shoulder of
Thrashers goalie Pasi Nurminen into the upper-ninety top right corner. It was Cole’s fifth goal on the season. Craig Adams was credited with the assist, his third of the year.

The Thrashers responded quickly as Patrik Stefan slid one by Canes goalie Kevin Weekes at 3:05 in the first period to bring the game back to a 1-1 tie, giving Stefan his fourth goal on the season. Thrasher Assistant Captain Vyacheslav Kozlov was credited with the assist on the play, his eighth of the season.

The Thrashers accumulated four penalties in the first period alone, and the Hurricanes capitalized on this to create a crucial scoring opportunity.

Taking advantage of a five-on-three power play, the Canes added another goal at 9:58 in the first period netted by Josef Vasicek that was assisted by both Hurricane team Captain Ron Francis and Danny Markov. Vasicek now has eight goals, Francis has two assists and Markov with five assists apiece on the season. This gave the Canes an early 2-1 lead at the end of the first period of play.

“I like the 5-on-3s because they work the puck around a little more to see what they could do, and it looked like they made some good decisions,” Maurice said.

The game remained scoreless in the second period until a late goal by Assistant Captain Rod Brind’amour netted his second goal of the season at 19:59 to end the second period with a 3-1 lead over Atlanta. Bret Hedican and Erik Cole were both credited with assists on the play, tallying their assist totals to four and eight each, respectively.

The third period began with offsetting penalties from both teams for an exciting four-on-four two minutes of play. At 13:28 in the third period Atlanta committed another penalty allowing the Canes a 1:30 five on-three advantage, which Ron Francis quickly capitalized on at 14:08 in the third period, making the score 4-1. Francis was assisted by Jeff O’Neill and Radim Vrbata, their tenth and fourth tallies for assists on the season, respectively.

The Canes scored again at 16:29 in the third to make the score 5-1. Kevin Adams was credited with the goal, his first of the season, and was assisted by Jesse Boulerice and Marty Murray. It was Murray’s second assist on the year and Boulerice’s first.

Hurricanes coach Paul Maurice said the first goal was important to the rest of the game.
“That (goal) was concrete evidence they were ready to play,” Maurice said.

The Canes were led by Erik Cole, Ron Francis and Kevin Weekes, who guided the Canes to the win and their current record (5-6-5-0), while the Thrashers record fell to (7-6-3-1).

Head coach of the Thrashers Bob Hartley was disappointed in his team for letting its guard down against the Canes.

“The bottom line was very simple to analyze tonight’s game – we were not there,” Hartley said.

News Editor Kelly Grittith contributed greatly to this story