Canes' power play outage continues

Besides again giving up an early goal, Carolina struggles to find power in its power play

RALEIGH -- The Carolina Hurricanes suddenly don't seem to be able to win on home ice.

The Canes don't seem to be able to score on the power play.

The Canes don't seem to be able to score the first goal of a game.

All that was the case, again, on Sunday night against the Anaheim Ducks. Though the Hurricanes played hard for the most part, and they had their chances, the Ducks unloaded three third-period goals and left the RBC Center with a 4-1 victory.

For the Canes, that's three straight losses at home.

As for the Carolina power play, it's 0-for-25 in the past six games and 1-for-34 in the past eight after an 0-for-4 night against the Ducks.

"It was a tough game," the Hurricanes' Rod Brind'Amour said. "The first two periods, I thought we were playing the way we wanted to. We just fell apart in the last half of the game.

"The power play is really struggling. We've got to get that going and get some goals."

The Ducks, 7-0-1 in their past eight road games, scored the go-ahead goal in the third on a power play. Teemu Selanne redirected a Chris Pronger blast past goaltender Michael Leighton, who entered the game at the start of the second period when starter Cam Ward was forced to leave with a lower-body injury.

The goal came after the Canes killed off 38 seconds of a two-man Ducks advantage. The first Carolina penalty, against Patrick Eaves for elbowing Corey Perry, left the Hurricanes still steaming after the game.

"A real weak call," Brind'Amour said.

On the second penalty, Carolina's Frantisek Kaberle was called for hooking. Ten seconds after the Eaves penalty ended, Selanne scored on the tip for his 13th goal of the season.

Rob Niedermayer followed with an even-strength goal 1:09 after Selanne's goal and it was 3-1, Ducks.

Niedermayer added a second goal at 14:55 to finish it off for surging Anaheim (14-8-3).

"Five-on-five, I thought we generated a lot of chances," Canes coach Peter Laviolette said. "There were a lot of pucks at the net, a lot of traffic and things that we want to do to score goals.

"Power plays, there's just nothing in sync with it. There's nothing good about it right now. Our urgency in those situations has to be better on the power play."

The Canes (12-11-2) lost for the third straight time at the RBC Center and gave up the first goal of the game for the 10th straight game. Ryan Getzlaf's hard wrister 1:44 into the first period, after a Carolina turnover, gave the Ducks a 1-0 lead and extended the forward's points streak to eight games.

Matt Cullen's goal later in the first tied it, and the Canes outshot the Ducks 17-3 in a scoreless second period played mostly in the Anaheim end. Ducks backup goalie Jonas Hiller made the key stops -- Carolina's Eric Staal and Ray Whitney were denied after getting good looks -- and Kaberle banged a shot off the post.

"We were terrible in the second period," Ducks coach Randy Carlyle said. "It was like we stood around and watched. We have to credit our goaltender basically for keeping us in the hockey game."

Laviolette said Ward, so strong in the Canes' 3-2 overtime win Friday over the Flyers in Philadelphia, was pulled from the game to risk further injury.

"Hopefully, it's nothing that's long term," he said.

The Hurricanes, who next play the Pittsburgh Penguins on Thursday at the RBC Center, can't let the power play continue to be a long-term problem. There's also this thing about falling behind in games, and there's that 6-7-0 record at home.

"I don't think it's about the schedule. It's about attitude right now," Carolina forward Tuomo Ruutu said. "I don't think we played a bad game. We played an all right game. But it's not enough in this league."

Certainly not Sunday night, not against the Ducks.