Struggling Canes hit rock bottom

RALEIGH -- The Carolina Hurricanes have hit bottom.

The Hurricanes, winless in their past 10 games, and are 30th - that's last - in the NHL standings.

They are 30th in the NHL in scoring.

They are 30th in penalty minutes per game.

They also are 29th in goals against per game, with only the Toronto Maple Leafs worse.

And those teams play tonight at the RBC Center.

Hurricanes center Eric Staal is injured and out. Now, it appears winger Ray Whitney may miss a few games, as well.

Whitney and forward Tuomo Ruutu missed Thursday's practice at the RecZone with upper-body concerns. They're listed as "day-to-day" and were to undergo tests later Thursday.

With a need for a forward, the team called up Zach Boychuk from the Albany River Rats of the American Hockey League. Boychuk, the Canes' first-round draft pick in 2008, will be at today's morning skate, and general manager Jim Rutherford said he would be among the top nine forwards in the lineup.

Adversity? Struggling teams talk about it. The Canes (2-9-3) are living it.

"We're trying to stop the bleeding," coach Paul Maurice said Thursday.

Maurice, who was given a three-year contract after leading the Canes to the Eastern Conference finals last season, was asked Thursday if he felt his job was in jeopardy. His answer: "No."

But that's about the only definitive answer anyone may have on a team that has not only lost a lot of games but seems to have lost its way.

"Every team is going to face adversity in the course of a season," forward Erik Cole said. "You're going to have injury issues, sicknesses, flu. It's all part of it.

"It seems like we're catching a lot of these kinds of breaks early in the year, which hopefully ... means there's lots of good days to come over the next couple of months."

That's called taking a positive approach, and why not? In the Canes' minds, what else can go wrong?

In a 3-0 road loss to the Florida Panthers on Wednesday, Carolina had a 21-4 shooting edge in the first period. Sergei Samsonov hit the post, and others had good chances.

The end result: Nothing got past Panthers goaltender Tomas Vokoun, in the first period or any period. The Hurricanes were shut out for the third time this season, have scored more than two goals just three times and are averaging 1.93 goals a game.

Conversely, they're giving up 3.64 goals a game. The Maple Leafs, 1-7-5 but with a game in hand on the Canes, are allowing 3.92 goals.

"The first period is something we can build on," Cole said. "We played exceptional in a lot of areas of our game that we wanted to be better in.

"We just have to keep grinding. We can't look at the big picture right now. Sometimes that can be a little demoralizing, to see the hole we've dug ourselves into."

Rutherford said a goal for the team is get back to .500 by Christmas time, then go from there.

"We don't have to win 10 games in a row," he said. "We may go 2-1 in a week, or 3-1.

"We just have to build on what we did [Wednesday] as a team and stick together as a team. I thought our defense was much stronger. Our forwards created some chances, but their goalie was the first star [of the game]."

Penalties, again, were a problem. The Panthers had six power plays in the final two periods, stalling the Canes' momentum and getting a power-play goal from Cory Stillman with 6:16 left in the third for a 2-0 lead.

Maurice said he wasn't sure where Boychuk and Brandon Sutter, both 20, would fit in the lineup tonight. Sutter, brought in Oct. 24 from the River Rats, has two goals and has given the Canes some energized play.

"One of these nights it's going to go for us, and we're going to catch a roll and get going," Sutter said.

When? Good question. For the Hurricanes, the winless streak is the franchise's longest in a season since a 10-game skid in 1993-94.

As Maurice put it, "You have to get back into the fight before you can think about winning the fight."

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