Leighton takes a loss

PHILADELPHIA -- The last few days had been anything but routine for Michael Leighton of the Carolina Hurricanes.

His wife, Jennifer, gave birth to a daughter in the early hours of Friday morning. The backup goaltender missed the team practice Friday and the team charter to Philadelphia, flying in early Friday evening.

Once at the team hotel, Leighton was asked how he was feeling. He said fine. He then was told he'd be starting his first game of the season Saturday against the Philadelphia Flyers.

That the Flyers won 6-1 at the Wachovia Center made it easy to second-guess the decision to give Cam Ward a day off after 11 straight starts. The Flyers bolted to a 3-0 lead in the first period against Leighton and the Canes (2-7-3), whose winless streak has reached eight games and whose road record is 0-5-2.

Was it asking too much of Leighton, who had been in one game, relieving Ward against the Bruins at Boston on Oct. 3?

"It's on me. I'm fine with that," Canes coach Paul Maurice said. "Based on the way he played, he wasn't at his best, obviously.

"We made the decision based on feel. I thought we competed a lot harder around him and gave him a better chance, and he struggled."

Leighton said the excitement of the birth and the improvised travel didn't affect his play.

"I knew I was playing before all the stuff happened," Leighton said. "I still wanted to play.

"It wasn't like I was out for a week or anything. I just took one day off practice. It has nothing to do with that."

But Leighton said he did feel the effects of the little work this season.

"I felt a little rusty the first half of the game," he said. "The second half I felt pretty good. I kind of calmed down a little bit."

By then, the Flyers led 4-1. Ray Emery, who shut out the Canes 2-0 in their season-opening gamer, was on his way to a 39-save game.

Scott Hartnell gave the Flyers (6-4-1) a 1-0 lead with a first-period power-play goal, tipping in a Chris Pronger shot. David Laliberte and Matt Carle then added even-strength goals in the first.

Laliberte, called up Friday from Adirondack of the AHL after Daniel Briere was injured, scored his first NHL goal in his first game when Leighton tried to poke away the puck on a rebound. With Leighton was caught too far out, Carle circled the net and stuck in the wraparound.

"I let in some goals I'd like to have back. I let out a couple of rebounds that I ... usually don't let out, and they scored off it," Leighton said.

The Hurricanes opened the second period with more jump. They kept the puck in the Flyers' end, pressuring goalie Ray Emery and finally scoring on Brandon Sutter's first goal of the season, off a Sergei Samsonov pass at 2:56.

The momentum was fleeting. Rookie forward James van Riemsdyk won a fight for the puck in the Carolina zone and scored 14 seconds later for the Flyers.

"We came out the second hard," Sutter said. "We got a goal, and they came back with a quick one, and for whatever reason that kind of changed the game."

Flyers defenseman Braydon Coburn added two goals 90 seconds apart in the third, but the issue already had been settled.

But again, the big question was starting Leighton. The Canes face the San Jose Sharks today at the RBC Center in Raleigh -- a team Leighton started against and beat last season in San Jose.

"I thought they were going to play Cam [Ward] today and play me against San Jose," Leighton said. "But I told them I wanted to play."

Maurice said Leighton responded well last season in similar situations -- to wit, at San Jose. Not this time, though.

Despite the lopsided score, Maurice said he was pleased with the team's effort.

"We didn't make a lot of mental mistakes like blown coverages or cheating or not competing," he said. "We were better in so many areas.

"I know that's hard for me to sell that. ... When you get beat 6-1, you can't be sitting there saying we were right there, because you weren't."

The Canes will have forwards Erik Cole and Tuomo Ruutu back in the lineup today. Cole has been out since Oct. 3 with a leg fracture, and Ruutu has been suspended the past three games for his hit on the Colorado Avalanche's Darcy Tucker.

"It's exactly what you need - you need a boost, you need some fresh legs to come in and sort some of your lines a little differently," Maurice said. "We're expecting a good boost from them."

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