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RALEIGH, N. wholesale jerseys .C. -- The divisions changed for the Carolina Hurricanes and Florida Panthers. The results havent. The Hurricanes extended their home-ice dominance of their former Southeast Division rivals, beating them 5-1 on Friday night. Riley Nash and Alexander Semin scored 87 seconds apart in the first period. Brett Bellemore, Jiri Tlusty and Andrej Sekera also scored, and Jeff Skinner had two assists to help the Hurricanes win their seventh in 10 games. "Its a little bit more fun when youre playing with the lead," Nash said. "In this league, especially, its tough to come from behind every night, so getting that lead is especially important." Carolina improved to 30-7-4 at PNC Arena against the Panthers, winning both meetings this season. Realignment sent the former division rivals in different directions, with the Hurricanes in the Metropolitan and Florida in the Atlantic. Carolina pulled even with fifth-place Washington with 61 points in its crowded division, while Florida remains firmly in seventh place in the Atlantic. "Its really disappointing to see where our expectations are, and my expectations and everybodys expectations have to be on the same page, and I think we have to raise them," Panthers coach Peter Horachek said. "We have to expect more from each other, and I expect more from them because its certainly not desperate hockey, and its certainly not where it needs to be." Eric Staal set the Hurricanes career record for shots on goal, passing Hall of Famer Ron Francis late in the second period. Staal finished with four shots, giving him 2,542. Anton Khudobin stopped 34 shots in his 16th straight appearance for Carolina. Nick Bjugstad scored for Florida, which enters the Olympic break having lost five of six. "We put ourselves in this situation," captain Ed Jovanovski said. Tim Thomas stopped just 10 of the 14 shots he faced. He was pulled with 15:24 left in the second after Tlusty tapped in a rebound to make it 4-1. Scott Clemmensen replaced him and stopped 16 shots. Ten Hurricanes appeared on the score sheet and Skinner was the only one with multiple points. "To be successful in the NHL, you cant rely on one line," Nash said. "You see the teams that had success in the past, win Stanley Cups, they have four lines that chip in and they have their big guns going like we do. Its been nice to see." Carolina pounced on the Panthers early in this one, with Nash and Semin striking in bang-bang fashion. Nash scored at 9:17 of the first when Tuomo Ruutu dug the puck out near the boards and slipped it toward the slot to Nash, who beat Thomas high. Semin then made it a two-goal game at 10:44 with a spinning wrist shot -- his third goal in two games this season against Thomas and the Panthers. "That was actually the game plan -- come out, just stay on them, get pucks behind them," Bellemore said. "Get shots to the net, keep getting chances and wear them out." After Bjugstad pulled Florida to 2-1 with a wrist shot that trickled past Khudobin, Bellemore restored Carolinas two-goal lead with a slap shot with 1:39 left in the first. "Once we got the lead, we kind of backed off and started to play a little more pond hockey," Hurricanes coach Kirk Muller said. "Game got a little bit too open for us and it was an up-and-down kind of game, so we just had to tighten it up at times." NOTES: Staal, who assisted on Tlustys goal, has 36 points in 35 games. ... Ruutu skated in his 600th career game. ... Carolina improved to 16-1-4 when scoring first. ... Bellemore and Florida D Erik Gudbranson slugged it out with 5:29 left in the second. Bellemore ended the fight by slamming Gudbranson to the ice. wholesale nfl jerseys . Backlund took the puck to the net and sent a pass to Sean Monahan, whos shot was stopped by Wild netminder Darcy Kuemper. The puck, however, bounced into the air and Backlund batted it down and past Kuemper at 2:25 of extra time. cheap nfl jerseys . Washington leads Winnipeg by one point for first place in the Southeast Division standings. The Capitals have a game in hand on the Jets.CORK, Ireland -- Mikko Ilonen of Finland carded a course-record 7-under-par 64 while crowd favourite Rory McIlroy finished 10 shots behind in the first round of the Irish Open on Thursday. Ilonen birdied five of his closing seven holes in superb scoring conditions to end the day with a two-shot lead on the Fota Island course. Ilonen had just 26 putts on the occasion of his 300th European Tour event. It added up to a record on a course made over since the last Irish Open at Fota Island in 2002. The Finn, a three-time winner on tour, wasnt surprised at the fifth course record in his career. "I lost out in a playoff to Sergio (Garcia) in the Qatar Masters this year, and recently in the Nordea Masters I felt my game was good despite finishing 32nd, which is still a mystery how I finished 32nd that week as I was hitting my best shots of the week there," Ilonen said. "Maybe the good golf is there but then we still haave a long way to go. cheap jerseys. ." Tied for second on 5 under were Germanys Marcel Siem and the Swedish pair of Robert Karlsson and Magnus Carlsson. McIlroy hit just eight of the 14 fairways and took 30 putts in a round of 3-over 74. Hes in a lowly share of 125th place in the 156-player field. "Ive still got a little bit of jet lag, for sure, coming from the U.S. Open," he said. "I wasnt able to do much the Monday, Tuesday, because the clubs didnt arrive until yesterday, as well, so that was a little bit frustrating more than anything else. "But I did a really good practice session on the range last night after the pro-am, and was feeling good going out this morning. However, I just couldnt really put it together as I was very sloppy with the scoring clubs, wedges, the short game, the putting. All that was just a little off. "Hopefully, that is my poor round for the week." ' ' ' |
