Canes Aim to Replicate Home Success in California

For the third time in as many weeks, the Carolina Hurricanes are set to hit the road to play three straight games, the final leg of a stretch that sees the team play nine of 11 away from home.
The two home games that the Hurricanes played in that time - both Sunday evening match-ups on the latter half of a back-to-back set - the team won, as Carolina has now strung together six consecutive victories at home for the first time since 2010.

The current streak dates back to Nov. 12, when the Hurricanes stormed past the Washington Capitals by a 5-1 margin.
In those six games, the Hurricanes have outscored their opponents 16-6, a stretch that includes two 1-0 shutout wins over the San Jose Sharks and Tampa Bay Lightning. It's still an average of 2.67 goals per game, which is above the Canes' overall average of 2.28 goals per game, a mark that ranks 27th in the league.
The Hurricanes have only surrendered an average of one goal per game in their six-game home winning streak, thanks in large part to the work of Cam Ward, who has presided over five of the six victories. In that stretch, Ward has stopped 131 of the 135 shots he's seen (.970 save percentage) and posted two 1-0 shutout wins. On Nov. 27, Michael Leighton stepped in between the pipes and made 31 saves in his first NHL victory in six years.
"We've been doing a lot of good things at home," defenseman Justin Faulk said. "You want to make it a hard place to come into."
The Hurricanes' recent success at home is encouraging. After this week's California road swing, 31 of the team's 54 remaining games will be played at PNC Arena. There are four-game homestands in mid-December and mid-January. There's a five-game homestand in the latter half of February. There are two three-game homestands in March and leading into the first of April.
"At some point, we've got to have some home games," head coach Bill Peters joked after practice on Tuesday. "I just know there's 41 a year and we haven't played a lot of them yet, so they're coming."

More immediately, there's yet another multi-game road trip, one that will take the Hurricanes through Anaheim and Los Angeles on consecutive nights and end in San Jose on Saturday.
"It's not easy necessarily on the body to be traveling, playing in back-to-backs on the road and sleeping in different beds every night, but that's the way the league is and every team deals with it," Faulk said.
While the team has won six straight at home, the Canes are winless in five straight on the road (0-4-1).
Considering that recent success the team has experienced in friendly confines, what has been the difference on the road? It's not the overall effort - that's been fine, Peters said. The main culprit has been the team's offense, which has mustered just seven goals over the last five road games, a mark well below the team's season average and significantly less than the team's average over its last six home games.
"We have to find a way to score more," said Peters, who continues to harp on his magic number of three goals per game. "We kind of know what it's all about, but we've got to be willing to do the right things in order to score."
That involves getting bodies to the front of the net, either to provide a screen in the face of the opposing goaltender or to gain body position for a whack at a second or third rebound.
Take, for instance, Phil Di Giuseppe's overtime game-winner on Sunday against Tampa Bay. As Di Giuseppe corralled the puck, Viktor Stalberg cruised through the slot (and appeared to make contact with Ben Bishop's stick, which the Lightning contested), providing disruption enough so that when Di Giuseppe snapped off his shot, it beat Bishop through his legs.
"Our focus is on scoring," Peters said. "It's the ability to get on the board. I'd love to get on the board early. … It's about the urgency to score, what you have to do to score. I want to see more guys in the blue paint. I want to see guys making it harder on the goaltender. If we do that, we'll be successful."
"We're generating shots … but you've got to be able to get quality chances and quality shots. To do that, generally you need to have guys around the net. I know coach says that a lot, making sure we have a net-front presence. It's not necessarily just the guys in front, it's getting shots from the inside, being able to work to get inside the dots and create chances 'in the house,'" Faulk said. "To generate more offense and score more goals, we've got to be able to work our way inside and make it tough on them."
Heading out to California, Peters wants to see more of the same from his team, with a few notable differences, too.
"We have to go out and play properly on the road. We did that on the last trip. I thought we played real well other than the fact that we didn't generate and didn't finish," he said. "We didn't generate enough consistently throughout the game. We want to make sure we're generating. We worked on some scoring here today, and hopefully it transfers over to the trip."
The answer to how the Hurricanes can translate their home success to the road may be quite simple.
"Do the same thing," Peters said. "I like where we're at. We just have to continue to take steps."
"We've been close in a lot of those games on the road. Maybe in the third period there giving up a couple we'd like to have back or letting them tie it or get a lead. Just closing out those last 15-20 minutes of the game is huge," Faulk said. "I think if we continue to play the same style, the 60-minute game we're trying to accomplish every night, we're fine."