CANES LOSE TO DEVILS IN RETURN

Carolina

After a long lay off, a few structure fires and of course several deals, the new look Canes took the ice at home in front of a packed house of rapid fans only to lay the biggest egg of the season.

New comer Bryan Smolinski scored the Canes lone goals as the home side got spanked 5-1 by the New Jersey Devils.

"This is not how we envisioned our return," said captain Shane Doan, who assisted on the lone goal. "We were all fired up to play, at least for a week now, and then we hit the ice and it was like we forgot how to play. We embarrassed ourselves out there tonight."

The normally steady netminder Jose Theodore was chased out of the game mid third period after allowing 5 goals on 27 shots. Theodore was also upset with not only his own performance, but the entire teams.

"We have practiced so much lately that I thought we would be sharper than that," said Theodore. "I let in a couple soft goals, but man, we could not get the puck out of our own zone throughout much of the game. We need to be better."

The only home town highlight was Shane Doan, the rugged forward, got into a bit of a tussle with Devils defenseman Karel Pilar, and landed about 5 straight shots to the beak of the defender. Pilar was knocked silly and Doan figured the team could rally from the momentum.

"I figured we could build off of it, but all that happened was the Devils scored again 3 minutes later. It just was not our night."

The Canes have tonight off and hopefully look a bit more like a team the following day.