Recap: Canes Fall to Avalanche

The Carolina Hurricanes were bested by the Colorado Avalanche, 3-1, on Saturday afternoon at PNC Arena.
Philipp Grubauer made 42 saves and Gabriel Landeskog scored twice to hand the Hurricanes their third straight regulation loss.
Here are five takeaways from this afternoon's game.

One
After starting the season 4-0-1, the Hurricanes have now dropped three straight games in regulation. It's an 82-game season, though, and this three-game set could be nothing more than a speed bump. The key is not to let it become something more.
"You don't want to let things snowball and go the wrong way," Justin Williams said. "The trick is to not let it become bigger than it is. Nip it. As long as we approach it that way, we'll be fine."

"It's a long year, and you're going to have ups and downs. At the end of the day, it's the process of how we're playing. I don't want to be negative or anything because I think our game is there. It's just a matter of getting a couple of bounces," head coach Rod Brind'Amour said. "You don't want the losses to bleed and make it feel like, oh my god, we're not playing that well, when, in my opinion, we're playing pretty well and getting really good efforts out of most of our guys."
Two
Micheal Ferland sparked some life into his team and the crowd in the third period, laying two big hits, including a crushing blow to Tyson Jost that then prompted Erik Johnson to drop the gloves with Ferland. Not a great idea for Johnson, though, as Ferland took care of business with a handful of punches.
Later, Ferland banged in a pass from Sebastian Aho in the slot to break Grubauer's shutout.

"He's been good all year. He plays his game," Brind'Amour said. "He's an impact player for us. He's one of those guys who has been great."
With the primary assist on that goal, Aho extended his point streak to eight games, and he continues to lead the team in scoring with 13 points (4g, 9a).
Three
The Canes couldn't put more than one past Grubauer despite putting 42 shots on goal. And they weren't all just perimeter shots, either; the scoring chances were there.
"I think we had our chances. We definitely put a lot of pucks on them," Jordan Martinook said. "We definitely had chances to get more than one goal."
"Shots are not the indicator to me. It's the chances for and against," Brind'Amour said. "You have to make sure you're getting quality chances. Those are there."
"We did some pretty good things tonight. We didn't score. Sometimes you put up eight, sometimes you put up a goose egg. If we keep doing it right, we feel we're going to be all right in the end," Williams said. "We certainly created enough to win. Did we create enough seconds and thirds? I'm not quite sure about that. We got behind early, and we couldn't quite get it back. We just need to be a little bit better, a little bit tighter and just a tiny bit hungrier. It's a game of inches."
Four
Still hampering the Hurricanes is their inability to score on the power play. The Canes were 0-for-5 on the man advantage this afternoon, while the Avs converted one of their four chances.
"Special teams is something that's kicking us in the butt right now, but we'll rectify that," Williams said.
"The power play is stale, and that's got to change," Brind'Amour said. "That might be an area we shake up."
The Canes are now just 2-for-30 on the power play this season (and one of those goals was an empty-netter).
Five
Clark Bishop made his NHL debut and centered a line with Brock McGinn and Valentin Zykov. Bishop got the rookie treatment at warm-ups, when he was sent out alone to take a couple laps and put a couple pucks in the net before the rest of the team joined him on the ice.
Bishop finished the day with two hits and a 50 percent faceoff win percentage in 7:10 of ice time.
Up Next
The Hurricanes will take their new third jerseys on the road to Detroit to square off with the Red Wings on Monday.