The 2-6 outcome should never bely the fact that Hawks and Hurricanes played a pretty close game with 35-34 shots for Carolina. However, terrible goaltending from Brent Johnson led to this weak result.
In fact, Hawks were outshooting Carolina 26-15 after two, still trainling 2-3 at that point.
Hawks suddenly managed to stay out of the box, as Hurricanes had only 3 powerplays on the night and scored 0 on them (Hawks PK is still their only pride).
Tony Hrkac was one of 4 Hawks, who were not on the negative side of +/- and he logged the most IT among them.
Jiri Hudler posted 2 assists, as he has 5 points in last 2 games. Jon Klemm with other 2 assists, Ovechkin and Richardson with goals.
Kovalev had 0 points, yet registering led all skaters in hits again and had 3 shots. Cassels was maily invisible.
"Well, Hawks were playing basically the same - great offense (yup, I call 34 shots on Hurricanes great offense, Aebischer is another story) and terrible defense. This time we were just badly outgoaltended, like usually this season. However, next 4-6 weeks Hawks have very soft schedule and if our offense would keep generating shots, we may get some points down the road."
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