Recap: Hurricanes Blanked by Canucks

VANCOUVER - The Carolina Hurricanes were stymied by Jacob Markstrom and the Vancouver Canucks in a 3-0 shutout loss.
Markstrom made 30 saves in his first career shutout in 129 games, as the Canes fell to 0-7-3 in Vancouver since the turn of the century.
Here are five takeaways from tonight's game.

One
All things considered, the Hurricanes played a pretty good road period in the first 20 minutes. The Canes quadrupled the Canucks in shots, 12-3, and held Vancouver without a shot for the last 16:25 of the period, a stretch that included a power-play for the home team.
"I think we played a good first period," Justin Faulk said. "We had chances and looks."
"We played like we did against Florida," Derek Ryan said. "We were physical on the forecheck."
But, the Canes couldn't capitalize on their dominant effort, and it was a scoreless game heading into the first intermission. Coming into tonight, the Canes were 5-1-1 when leading after one period and 4-4-3 when tied after one; that's a sizable disparity and all the reason more why the Hurricanes need to manufacture something more tangible from their otherwise strong starts.
"The start was fine. I thought we did some good things," Head coach Bill Peters said. "We needed to be a little harder at the net, but I thought the start was fine."

Two
Things then got away from the Canes in the second period.
The Canucks began the period killing off the remaining 55 seconds of a carry over power play, a sequence capitalized by Bo Horvat's breakaway opportunity that was turned away by Scott Darling.
"We felt good. We talked in the room after the first. Had some good looks, keep it going, keep skating, keep trying to get in on the forecheck and create turnovers," Faulk said. "We had a power play to start the second. Didn't necessarily get a ton of chances there."
"I think they got momentum off their kill," Peters said. "They got a little momentum off that, and then they capitalized."
Derrick Pouliot's second of the year ended up being the game-winner, as he walked through the Hurricanes group of five, dragged the puck to the middle of the ice and scored on a quick snap shot.
"They made a good play when we turned it over in transition and scored," Peters said.
Thomas Vanek stretched the lead to two with a redirection in the slot on the power play, and all of a sudden the Canes found themselves down a pair of goals.
"Second periods have been tough for us as of late," Faulk said. "We need to carry those first periods over to the second to build a game and try to win."
Three
So, second periods.
Including tonight, the Hurricanes have been outscored 10-2 in the middle frame in their last six games. Coming in to tonight's game on the season, the second period was the only one in which the Hurricanes had a negative goal differential (now 25-18).
"I think maybe it's puck management. It's the period of the long change. You've got to make sure you're making strong plays with the puck and make sure you have a forecheck," Peters said. "I didn't think we had a very effective forecheck in the second."
"We almost have a little bit of a letdown," Faulk said. "I don't know if it's not having the confidence right now that it will continue, so we just need to find a way to continue that play we have in the first period, carry it over to the second and not get disappointed that we didn't score and get a 1-0 or 2-0 lead."
"Starting on time, coming out hard in the first. We've got to continue that in the second," Ryan said. "It just got away from us tonight."
Four
The issue of the second-period sag will need to be rectified sooner rather than later if the Hurricanes want to be more consistent as a bunch.
The team also needs to find a way to string together a number of quality efforts. Saturday night's overtime victory against Florida was emotional and dramatic. Tonight's game in Vancouver fell flat after a promising start.
"We need to put together a full 60 minutes," Ryan said. "We've had good periods here and good periods there, but we haven't put together a good, full 60 minutes - against Florida we did - but more consistently, game after game."
"You just have to stick with the script, play your game every night, try to build and continue to grow as a team," Faulk said.
Five
Marcus Kruger was given a 10-minute misconduct in the second period following Vanek's power-play goal. On the video feed I saw at Rogers Arena, a replay showed Kruger being upended by Sven Baertschi away from the puck, so I assumed his anger was related to that unpenalized play. Perhaps that was part of it. But, the reason he was given the misconduct was that one of the linesman believed Kruger had intentionally shot the puck in his direction. Kruger maintains his one-handed flip of the puck towards the linesman was in no way malicious, which was the source of the protest as he left the ice.
Up Next
The Hurricanes will head to California for a three-game set that begins on Thursday in San Jose.