RALEIGH -- Seven games into the season, the Carolina Hurricanes are looking to resuscitate an ailing offense.
To be sure, the Hurricanes weren't one of the top scoring teams in the NHL last season. But they weren't tied for 28th, either, averaging two goals a game.
Other than a seven-goal outburst against the Florida Panthers, the Canes have not mustered more than two goals in a game. Shut out once in the regular season a year ago, they've been blanked twice in a 2-4-1 start, losing 2-0 Saturday to the New Jersey Devils.
"Generating offense isn't easy in this league," winger Ray Whitney said. "It's more about winning the battles in the offensive zone, competing for that puck. When we get the puck in the corner, we've got to start controlling it more and not losing it and have them break out on us.
"And once we do get it, we have to start getting more aggressive in getting to the front of the net. ... Maybe a little more hunger, a little more attitude to want to score goals."
In the first minute of the New Jersey game, the Canes' Chad LaRose ripped a shot that goalie Martin Brodeur blocked with his body. Eric Staal was just to the side of the goal and got a piece of the puck, but couldn't put it on net.
Staal, who scored 40 goals last season, has two. LaRose, while continuing to hustle and do his part to kill penalties, does not have a point, and winger Sergei Samsonov also is without a goal. But nearly everyone is struggling, squeezing the stick.
"Because we have so many players up front feeling offensively challenged, I think that's first and foremost in their minds," Canes coach Paul Maurice said.
The Devils got the winning goal early in the third period when Rob Niedermayer made a centering pass from behind the Carolina goal to Jamie Langenbrunner, who was charging the net. Goalie Cam Ward got a stick on the puck, but it hit Langenbrunner near the shoulder and bounced into the net.
Just after the goal, Carolina pressured Brodeur as Staal tried a wraparound shot with Tuomo Ruutu skating hard to the front of the crease. Ruutu's strong move drew a tripping penalty on Travis Zajac, giving the Canes a power play.
But the power play fizzled, as so many have this season. The Hurricanes are 4-for-36, their 11.1 percent conversion rate ranking 29th in the league.
"We feel like we're getting good shots but we're not getting that many rebounds," Ruutu said. "It's about the small details: going to the net, stopping in front of the net, maybe shooting a little harder."
What the Hurricanes are lacking, Whitney said, are more goals like Langenbrunner's -- ugly, perhaps, but a badly needed goal for the Devils that made a difference.
"A lot of it sometimes is luck," he said. "But you earn your luck by competing. That's probably the biggest difference right now."
While several players -- Staal, Whitney, Samsonov and Matt Cullen among them -- missed practice Monday, Maurice and the team worked on puck-handling and puck battles. It was a practice devoted, he said, to "sharpness with the puck and our compete [level] when we don't have it."
Whitney, who has a team-high three goals, said the Hurricanes can't radically change or open up their offense. Do that, he said, and it could lead to two-on-ones and three-on-two rushes by the other team.
"But a big part of it is creating some stuff by getting the defenseman to jump up, getting that third forward on his horse so we don't have to just dump it in and chase it," he said. "Ideally, you'd like to carry it in with some speed and create some things,"
The Canes did that in the third period against the Devils, Whitney said, when Scott Walker put a hard shot on net and Tom Kostopoulos just missed on a shot off a long rebound.
"It's simple plays like that," Whitney said. "But it's also that willingness to get to the area where the rebounds are going to be."
Walker said the Canes -- 16th in scoring last season (2.88 goals a game) and 18th on the power play (18.7 percent) -- will work their way out of the offensive lull.
"Sometimes, you go through these funks," he said. "Instead of shooting the puck, you say, 'I'm not going good so I'm going to pass it or cycle it or I'm going to get rid of it.' So you pass it to a guy who's thinking the same thing.
"I just think we've got to get better all over the ice. We have a team that's good but you can't just go on the ice and win games. You can't just say, 'Oh, we've got a good team,' and at times I think we're doing that right now."
