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Eaves helps Hurricanes blast Capitals

Mar 4, 2009 - 4:00 AM WASHINGTON (Ticker) -- Patrick Eaves scored shorthanded and on the power play in a four-goal second period as the Carolina Hurricanes roared to a 5-2 victory over the Washington Capitals on Tuesday.

Eric Staal scored on a penalty shot and Matt Cullen also tallied shorthanded and recorded two assists for Carolina, which won for the fifth time in its last seven games.

Chad Larose had a goal and an assist and Cam Ward stopped 39 shots as the Hurricanes evened the season series at 2-2 with a pair of games remaining against its Southeast Division rival.

"We had some energy," Carolina coach Paul Maurice said. "We just came through a stretch of 10 games in 17 days and we were fried at the end of it. We actually had a practice yesterday, it was the first one in three weeks.

"I thought we had some good jump and we got some good bounces with the puck, but we haven't seen a whole lot of those, so we're not giving them back."

Alexander Semin and Sergei Fedorov scored in the second straight lopsided loss for Washington. The Capitals suffered a 6-2 beatdown at the hands of the Florida Panthers on Sunday.

Coming off a devastating loss of its own after blowing a two-goal, third-period lead to Atlanta on Saturday, Carolina took over in this one with a flurry in the second to secure a valuable win over one of the East's top three teams.

"The most important point is not to point fingers but to look in the mirror, regroup, adjust, do whatever possible to get back to that energy type of game that we like to play," Fedorov said.

Cullen and Eaves tallied shorthanded 3:50 apart in the second period to build a 3-0 lead after Staal's 28th goal of the season opened the scoring, beating Michal Neuvirth on a penalty shot with 35 seconds left in the opening period.

"Shorthanded goals are special," Maurice said. "It does two things - gives you a real jump on your bench - but it's against the other team's best offensive players and it takes a little wind out of their sails, too."

"If you look at the replay of those, our guys are skating around - Mike Green was just skating around doing nothing," Washington coach Bruce Boudreau said. "The whole crew was just skating around. When you saw the replay it was not a pretty sight."

Following a goal by Larose, Eaves and Carolina took advantage of their own power play as the right wing scored for the fifth time this season to build a five-goal bulge for the visitors.

"It was nice to get on the board," Eaves said. "It's been a little bit of a struggle this year for me, but most importantly, we need these points.

Semin got Washington on the board with a spectacular goal late in the second period, flipping a wrist shot on his knees from the left faceoff circle to beat Ward with three seconds remaining in the session. But it was too little, too late for Washington, which lost back-to-back home games for just the second time this season.

Neuvirth, starting in place of Jose Theodore (flu), made 25 saves for the Capitals.