The Carolina Hurricanes continue to be a defensive disaster, losing 6-4 to the Colorado Avalanche Saturday night at Ball Arena.

In addition to losing Sebastian Aho and Frederik Andersen to injuries, the Canes announced that Brett Pesce would miss the game as well with a lower-body injury.

Currently, the biggest problem for Carolina is that they just can't get out of their own way defensively.

The Hurricanes actually held their own for the most part at even strength, outchancing Colorado 43 to 37 and generating more high danger chances through 60 minutes, 7 to 4.

“It was a tough game because I feel like we were doing some good things, but special teams just ate us up," said Carolina head coach Rod Brind'Amour. "We’re in one. It’s not like we were giving up a ton, but everytime they had that opportunity, they put it in the back of the net and that’s what a great team does.”

So they aren't getting dominated or hemmed in at all, but when they have a breakdown, it's as bad as it can be.

Jaccob Slavin (and Brady Skjei) were danced by Nathan MacKinnon.

Slavin lost a puck battle to Fredrik Olofsson and missed a pass breakup leading to an easy tap-in.

Dmitry Orlov, Tony DeAngelo and Jordan Staal all chased a single puck carrier behind the net leaving MacKinnon wide-open in front.

Brent Burns wound up in no-mans land on more than one occasion.

“We’re definitely getting our chances," said Jordan Martinook. "There’s a time when you don’t want to be trading chances though, especially with a team with the skill that they have over there. Our team is built on grinding games out and that’s how we build our offense. You want to grind a team like that because if you don’t then you’re trading chances and they’re coming in with a ton of speed and that’s not sustainable.”

However, special teams is perhaps the biggest black eye of all.

A shorthanded goal against, which Tony DeAngelo gave no effort whatsoever on, and then three power play goals against which all came within 0:33 seconds of the start of each.

In fact, nearly every special teams goal against can be traced back to Jordan Staal's struggles in the faceoff dot. 

Staal, who went 1 for 4 in the faceoff dot while shorthanded, is 14 for 34 on the season and every power play goal against has been preceded by him losing the prior draw. 

Five of the nine power play goals scored against Carolina have come within the first 30 seconds of power play time and seven of nine have come within the first minute.

For whatever reason, once the Canes lose the draw they're on their heels and then guys are panicking, winding up out of position or just making bad reads.

“Regardless of the score, we need to play our game," said Stefan Noesen. "I actually thought we did that pretty well. There were a lot of special teams goals overall, but our 5v5 game was pretty close to being even. Special teams won the game for them.”

Yet despite all the struggles, somehow the offense is continuing to trudge along.

The Hurricanes scored four goals and, in essence, two on the power play (although the stat sheet will only say one since it expired moments before they scored). The offense has shown to be the Canes' most reliable side of their game and this is without their two best offensive players in Sebastian Aho and Andrei Svechnikov.

Noesen was a force for the Hurricanes, earning a third-straight multi-point game, and he had two screens leading directly to goals.

“[My line] sees the ice very well," Noesen said. "They kind of know where I am and I know where they are. It’s very simple. We don’t really try to do too much. Jarvis is an extremely hard work and Kotkaniemi has been finding the little soft areas and winning some faceoffs. We’re just trying to grind and figure each other out. I’m getting the chance to play with those guys right now, so I’m trying to make the most of it.”

Michael Bunting also picked up his second as a Cane with a cleanup goal in front.

At the very least, that's still a positive for Carolina.

“We’ve got to regroup," Brind'Amour said. "We’re scoring enough goals, but we just can’t stop anything from going into our own net. Special teams is a big part of it right now. Our kill is just atrocious. Everything is just going in, so we’re just going to have to readjust that a little bit obviously. We got to get 20 guys on the same page. We’ve got a few guys here that just aren’t quite there yet. That’s my job to try and bring them all together and when we do that, it looks right.” 

The Hurricanes will come home for a days rest before flying back out to take on the Tampa Bay Lightning on Tuesday.

“We’re trying to build momentum and throughout this year we’ve got going a little bit and then we shoot ourselves in the foot," Martinook said. "We’ll clean this up. We got a day to clean it up and then Tampa’s waiting for us. So we’ll clean it up, do some video, practice and try and be better next game.”

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