ATLANTA -- ATLANTA -- The Canes still believe they can make it happen. But do they have enough to make it happen?
A year ago, the Canes surged into the playoffs with Cam Ward in goal and at his best. The defensemen were Tim Gleason and Joe Corvo, Joni Pitkanen and Dennis Seidenberg, Niclas Wallin and either Anton Babchuk or Frantisek Kaberle.
In the last 18 games this season, with no room for error if they want to reach the playoffs, the Canes have Manny Legace and Justin Peters -- who both started the season in the AHL -- splitting the goaltending. On the back end are Gleason and Brian Pothier, Pitkanen and Alex Picard, and Brett Carson and Jay Harrison.
On depending on Legace and Peters, Canes coach Paul Maurice said, "We can only go on the facts and the facts say their play in the last month and a half has been good enough. It just has."
Peters won his first three games, but the rookie suffered his first loss Saturday against the Florida Panthers. Peters made 26 saves in a 4-1 road loss that ended the Canes' seven-game winning streak.
"I felt pretty comfortable," Peters said. "I just need to keep taking it one game at a time and keep the same approach in preparation."
The defensemen may need another game or two to get completely comfortable with each other. But when all is said and done, the first 18 games of the season -- the 2-12-4 start -- may prove to have been too much to overcome.
Maurice took a few moments to look back and reflect on the start, on the problems that led to it, and where the team is now.
"I think it was a five-man problem on our end of the ice. We were not scoring goals the way we thought we would. ... We were in motion and leaving the zone and playing such a high-risk game on our end of the ice that we gave up way too much offense.
"After the first or eight games I think our goaltending was about as good as the rest of our team game. I thought Cam was awesome the first six, seven games of the year. And that November stretch, we started to get really beat up. We were still playing that high-risk game on our end and we were't aggressive offensively (and) generating anything. I think as a team, mentally, we kept trying to generate more and generate more but it caused us more and more problems.
"Now there's a lot more patience in our game. We're in less of a hurry on our end of the ice and because of that we're scoring more goals."
Not enough against the Panthers, though. Not with the Panthers blocking 19 shots. For a team with little room for error, it was a tough loss.
Legace will be in goal today against the Thrashers. With a 5 p.m. start, the Canes passed on their ice time at Philips Arena.
While Brandon Sutter pushed his point streak to five games, assisting on Jussi Jokinen's goal against the Panthers, there was little help elsewhere. Eric Staal now has gone seven games without a goal although he has four assists in the last four games.
