From Talking Points:
As happy as the Hurricanes were to see Sergei Samsonov score his first goal of the season Tuesday, they know they have a bigger issue with “the big guy,” as Ray Whitney put it.
The 2-1 win over Montreal was Eric Staal’s eighth consecutive game without a goal, and he has scored only once in the past 12 games.
To put this in perspective, Staal has gone eight or more games without a goal only four times since the lockout, with his longest drought weighing in at nine games. (As a rookie in 2003-04, he went 33 games without a goal.) So this is unusual stuff for Staal, who has five goals in 19 games this season.
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Luke has worked for The N&O since 2000. He covered the Carolina Hurricanes and the NHL before becoming a sports columnist in August 2008. A native of Evanston, Ill., he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. He can be reached at 829-8947 or 
