Canucks Tie With 'Canes

With just three goals in the last three games, the Carolina Hurricanes are living on borrowed time offensively.

Sami Kapanen's team-leading 10th goal of the season helped Carolina salvage a 1-1 tie with the Vancouver Canucks on Wednesday night and give the team a 1-1-1 record during its scoring drought.

"This isn't going to win a lot of hockey games," coach Paul Maurice said of his team's offense. "We're struggling to put the puck in the net."

"We've been working on things, cycling the puck, getting our forechecking going, it's there," Maurice said. "You could tell the guys were just skating the puck almost right to the net, they weren't passing it around too much."

Carolina, which is now 0-2-14 in its last 16 overtime games, hasn't won in overtime since last March against the New York Rangers.

"We weren't prepared to play, but we got it going in the second," said Maurice, whose club had 20 of its 30 shots in the third and overtime periods.

Vancouver, in the middle of a five-game road trip, moved to 7-0-5 when leading after one period. The Canucks had been 5-1-2 away from home before losing 6-3 to Atlanta on Monday night and tying the Hurricanes.

"They had some traffic in front of the net. Obviously, that was by design," said Canucks goaltender Kevin Weekes. "There were a couple of shots I really couldn't see."

Weekes gave up numerous rebounds, but Carolina was unable to cash in.

"They play with a lot of patience and a lot of composure out there," Weekes said of Carolina. "A lot of their key players are veterans wih a lot of composure who know how to wait for what they want."

Kapanen's power-play goal early in the second period came on a perfect feed from Sean Hill as Vancouver's Andrew Cassels was prone on the ice in the Carolina end.

Canucks coach Marc Crawford argued that the play should have been stopped because of the injury. But the action continued with the Hurricanes essentially having a 5-on-3 advantage as Kapanen beat Weekes up high seven minutes into the second period.

Vancouver defenseman Chris Joseph scored two minutes into the game when he joined the rush and beat Arturs Irbe from the slot for his second goal of the season. Markus Naslund assisted for his team-leading 20th point.

The Hurricanes continued to be solid killing penalties at home, not allowing a power play goal in 20 chances in the team's new arena through nine games.

Carolina played without top defenseman Glen Wesley (groin) and fourth-leading scorer Jeff O'Neill (back) two key players on the team's power play.

©1999 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed