The Carolina Hurricanes lost their first home game of the season, falling 3-1 to the Philadelphia Flyers Wednesday night.
It was another night in which the problems that crept up have become much too familiar.
Here are my three takeaways from the loss.
Lapses
Once again, defensive lapses cost the Hurricanes.
Two guys open in the slot, a quick transition goal, multiple odd-man rushes preceded by poorly timed pinches, bad clearing attempts.
It just keeps happening.
For one, Tony DeAngelo has really struggled in his return to Carolina's system. DeAngelo has routinely lost his assignments in the defensive end and every night has given up the most high-danger chances.
But it hasn't just been the defense either, forwards have been careless with pucks in all three zones and have really fed other team's transition games.
Last night, we saw Martin Necas trying to force too many pucks and trying to skate pucks out of danger rather than moving them with simple plays.
Guys just aren't doing what they're supposed to. Which leads to the second point...
Buy-In
For the second night in less than a week, we've heard how the team hasn't had enough buy in from the group.
After Friday's loss to the Panthers, it was Jordan Martinook pushing back on his team's lack of commitment to playing the right.
Last night it was Jordan Staal questioning his team's buy-in.
Those are concerning statements to hear about a group that returned 19 out of 22 players.
Rod Brind'Amour hinted that if things don't change, some serious shakeups might be on the horizon and personally, I wouldn't be surprised if we see a trade before the end of the year.
Carter Hart
Despite all that, the Hurricanes still generated more than enough offense to win that game.
DeAngelo, for all his defensive mishaps, made a few tremendous passes that could have resulted in three different goals, rather than just the one the Canes actually got.
But at the end of the day, nobody wants to hear how a team did the right things on paper. All that matters is results.
However, it's not fair to say that this was some disaster-class performance.
Carter Hart played exceptionally well.
There were a handful of 'should-have-been' goals that he made tremendous saves on. There's a reason why he's had so much hype surrounding him even despite a down season last year.
Sometimes good goaltenders have good nights.
You also have to factor in that the Flyers blocked nearly 30 shots. Now there's a discussion to be had about smarter shot selections, but at the end of the day that was a team that committed to their game plan and sacrificed the body time and time again.
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