Saturday night, the Carolina Hurricanes managed to steal a win despite not playing a good game.

They weren't so lucky on Sunday.

The Canes lost 6-3 to the Anaheim Ducks Sunday night after a terrible start saw them fall into a hole too deep to crawl out of.

To start the game, Carolina was actually on the ball. They had the game's first five shots and things looked to be going well, but then a defensive turnover quickly led to a goal against.

Moments after that, a bad-angle shot beat goaltender Antti Raanta and then things started to unravel. 

The team looked disjointed, uninterested and the defensive effort was simply poor.

"We've got to start finding our identity," said captain Jordan Staal. "There's been a little too much hoping and a little too much waiting on skill. We're a hard forechecking team that plays a grind game and that's what we've got to find and get everyone involved in and buying into. 

"The skill always takes over once we grind teams down, but we haven't done that yet and it's pretty evident. We saw spurts of it over these first three games, but not consistent enough to win."

All of that combined to become the perfect recipe for disaster

The Ducks scored three times in the first period and made the Hurricanes look like anything but a contender. 

However, the Hurricanes started to build up some momentum in the second period. 

They outshot the Ducks 12-6 and looked more and more like themselves, and eventually Teuvo Teravainen broke through for his team.

In a dexterous display of skill, the Finnish forward deftly knocked down an airborne puck, settled it and sniped it home.

The Canes were looking like they could get back into the game, but then another defensive collapse led to the Ducks reestablishing their three-goal lead.

"We just dug ourselves into too much of a hole," said Carolina coach Rod Brind'Amour. "When we finally got going, it looked a little better and we crawled back into the game and gave ourselves the chance to possibly tie it up. I credit the guys for at least realizing that we weren't going well and they figured out a way to try and get back into it."

Carolina has shown they have the talent to mount comebacks though and that's exactly what the third period showed with a pair of power play goals for the Hurricanes.

Teravainen notched his second goal of the game, rocketing a shot from the blueline for his fourth of the year and then late in the period, Michael Bunting found Martin Necas on the backdoor to make it a one-goal game.

"We've gotta come with a lot of speed on the entries, that's kind of the key," Necas said on the power play. "You either have to win the faceoff and start in the zone right away or bring the puck on your stick into the zone. Sometimes you can score off that too."

The Canes managed to crawl themselves back into the game with a dominant period where they outchanced Anaheim 32-12, but it would be as close as they got.

A pair of empty net goals would sink the Hurricanes' comeback effort and hand Carolina its first loss of the season.

"We played two periods tonight and it cost us the game," Staal said. "We were a little too loosey goosey again, not defending well and giving up too many opportunities... The boys kept battling, but our start needed to be better for sure."

At the very least, the Canes looked the best they have all season in that third period and so maybe that momentum can carry over into Tuesday's game against the San Jose Sharks.

"It was a tough loss today, but we've got something to build on," Necas said. "We've gotta learn from the mistakes we made and play better defense."

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