I just want to make a few quick notes on the back to back games the Canes had against the Thrashers and the Panthers this week.

It continues to amaze me how much Eric Staal has matured and stepped up. His time has come and he knows it, in order for this team to make the playoffs this year he knew he would have to take the load on his back. After the Thrashers game on Wednesday he said in the interview that he felt he could have played better. This is AFTER he scored a goal and tallied an assist to beat down the Thrashers 5-3. So last night, when he scored in the shootout to ensure the win over the Panthers he was probably very pleased that we walked away from the road trip with all 4 points.

More important was last nights’ win. The 5-3 win over Atlanta was nice, but it was basically just kicking them down when they were already down. Believe in Hossa Blueland, right?

The Canes held down a 1-0 lead into the 3rd period last night. Most of the credit for that goes to Cam Ward who just stood on his head for the ENTIRE game. After some surging efforts in the 3rd period, the Panthers finally tied the game. I pretty much knew we would go to shootout once that happened. Both goaltenders were stellar (aside from Vokoun’s little slip up where he let Letowski score from the blue line) and you could just feel that neither was going to falter, even in the 4 on 4 situation.

I am not sure how much any of you are aware of our shootout record…but basically…we suck. Aside from a pre-season shootout against Columbus this year that went to 9 rounds before Andrew Ladd scored for the Canes, we pretty much just write off the shootout as a loss.

Needless to say, last night was OUR night. Cam only had to make two stops because after Jeff Hamilton was stopped by Vokoun, both Sergei Samsonov and Eric Staal scored for the Canes. Giving Cam Ward his first shootout win since the 2005-2006 season! I can’t even explain how happy I was after that win last night.

• If you haven’t seen it yet….please fastforward this video to 1:16…. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAIyT0_lCP8

• If you need some entertainment, head over to the Panthers boards and read the game day thread on there. For some reason they are stuck on Canes being the biggest divers in the league. Every penalty called on them (a slash, a trip and a roughing) they claimed we were diving. It’s great, because you can just tell how much it must frustrate them to have a team that pretends like they may do well every year. Perhaps the team can move forward to become better when the coach, or the players start taking responsibility instead of blaming everything else.

Canes have 6 games left, 87 points and a 7 point lead in the division. If we can keep this up we will be set to go.