Canes come alive in win

Trailing 3-1 late in the second, the Canes rally to beat the Maple Leafs

RALEIGH -- The comeback was impressive and the contributions came from many.

There were three power-play goals, a rookie's first NHL goal and a struggling veteran's first point of the season. The goalie didn't make every save, but he made enough, and the defensemen were solid when it counted.

For the Carolina Hurricanes, it all added up to a 6-4 victory Sunday over the Toronto Maple Leafs, before a roaring crowd at the RBC Center.

A day after a frustrating 3-1 loss to the Edmonton Oilers, the Canes trailed the Leafs 3-1 deep into the second period. Would Carolina fail to win a point in back-to-back home games?

But Ray Whitney's goal with less than four minutes left in the second started the Carolina surge. Dwight Helminen followed with his first NHL goal to tie the score 3-3, and Tuomo Ruutu fired a laser of a shot that Leafs goalie Curtis Joseph had no chance of stopping to make it 4-3.

"We started to create some things, and we weren't just standing around," Whitney said. "That was our attitude adjustment. We produced a lot of chances in the last six minutes of the period."

In a span of 3:20, the Canes scored three goals. And when Chad LaRose added another 1:15 into the third, the lead was 5-3.

"When we got that power-play goal by [Whitney], we just felt excited," LaRose said. "Everyone, all the way down, contributed."

The Canes (6-3-2) were missing center Matt Cullen, out with an apparent groin injury. And forward Patrick Eaves left the game because of illness.

But the "depth guys" from Albany filled in quite nicely for Carolina.

Helminen, called up a week ago from the River Rats of the American Hockey League, scored his first goal and assisted on LaRose's. Patrick Dwyer, called up Sunday, played more than 14 minutes in his first NHL game, had four hits and was effective.

"It can't be like one line scores all the goals in a game," Ruutu said. "We've got depth and it showed."

Dwyer played both Friday and Saturday nights with the River Rats. But he had no problem with fatigue, he said.

"It's something you dream about as a kid, and to get out there and actually do it, it's an amazing feeling," Dwyer said. "I was playing purely off adrenaline."

The Leafs, coming off a 5-2 win Saturday over the New York Rangers, led 1-0 after the first on Ian White's first goal of the season. The Canes' Joe Corvo tied it 1-1 early in the second on the power play -- Corvo's hard shot hitting Joseph, with the puck bouncing off the shin guard of defenseman Jeff Fingerin front and back into the net.

The Canes' Sergei Samsonov, pointless in the first 10 games, got an assist on Corvo's goal. But when the Leafs' Mikhail Grabovski followed with a pair of goals to make it 3-1, the RBC Center fell silent.

Back-to-back penalties on the Leafs got the building buzzing, and Whitney's goal came soon after the 5-on-3 ended. Helminen then scored, chipping the puck over Joseph as Helminen was dropping to the ice.

"We had a good shift going and were getting pucks to the net," Helminen said. "We got a shot from the point and the puck came out. It was bouncing and I just tried to get a stick on it."

Ruutu got plenty of stick on his shot. After swinging around the back of the net, he turned and blasted a top-shelf shot from the right circle.

The Leafs (5-4-3) made it 5-4 on Niklas Hagman's goal in the third. But Canes goalie Michael Leighton, who had 29 saves, didn't allow another, and Eric Staal's empty-netter finished it.

"I thought in the second half [of the game] we came alive," Canes coach Peter Laviolette said. "We started skating better, we generated offense, we started pressing down in the offensive zone and we picked up a little bit better defensively.

"That was the difference. It usually is. We talked about it before -- energy and execution. We found the energy in the building and were able to run with it."