Canes Fall Flat To Wild In Ugly Shutout Loss

The Carolina Hurricanes laid an egg Saturday night at Lenovo Center in a 4-0 shutout loss to the Minnesota Wild.

The Canes were bad out of the gate and an uncharacteristically tough night on special teams certainly didn't help.

The Hurricanes went 0-for-4 on the power play, including blowing a four-minute man advantage right at the start of the game, and generated a whopping one shot on goal in those eight minutes.

It was one of the worst power play nights for the team since last season's playoffs.

"It was a tough game right from the start," said Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour. "I think the power play sucked the life out of us right at the start. We had a four-minute and then we just never got going. Give them all the credit. They played their game to a tee. That's it."

And the penalty kill didn't fair much better as the Wild moved the puck with ease and managed to pick up a goal on the man advantage themselves as Joel Eriksson Ek redirected in a floated from the point.

There really isn't too much to say other than the fact that Canes were just not very good. They lacked emotion and just seemed disjointed all night.

"We were kind of just hoping that something good was going to happen and hoping maybe that someone else was going to do it," said captain Jordan Staal. "We lost the special teams battle which always hurts. I mean, our 5v5 play was pretty ugly. So it wasn't great. We got a game tomorrow and we have to learn from bringing some more emotion and just dragging each other into the fight. There really wasn't enough push at all."

They finished the game with just 21 shots on goal, but were credited with 20 giveaways. Not a recipe for success.

"The execution, the battle level, the 50/50s, the special teams, just the mindset — everything was wrong. And then that's what it looks like. I feel bad for our fans tonight."

The Hurricanes are a bit of a mess right now, which is almost weird to say because if you took a random sampling of games, you might end up thinking this team is world beaters.

The team has been plagued by a hot and cold dilemma for months now that is puzzling to say the least.

Last night, it was a 4-0 shutout loss to the Minnesota Wild, but three nights ago, it was an emotional 3-1 win over the Florida Panthers.

And that's been a pattern for a while now.

How a team could go from that to this in such a short window? I don't know.

The inability to string together wins has been a huge problem for Carolina.

"There's 82 games and we had an emotional game the other night and played great," Staal said. "I think it's just our mindset. I think we were just kind of moseying on into the game. It's the NHL. You can't just kind of show up and see what happens."

They'll grab a big win and look like they've finally turned that corner, but then the following game will be a dud.

In fact, the Canes have won consecutive games just once in the last month.

"It's gotta change," Brind'Amour said. "We have to get on a roll. But that consistency has been a big issue with our group right now. Play really well and then not so good. Finding that consistency is what we have to get to."