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Tim Gleason’s brow was still streaming sweat, with no signs of stopping, when he sat down at his locker after a long, tough practice Thursday.

“That’s what happens when you suck,” the Hurricanes defenseman said. “Go ahead and write that down.”

Still, that’s not what had him steaming — it was the consecutive home losses to Atlanta (5-2 on Sunday) and Washington (5-1 on Wednesday).

Although Gleason may not wear a letter for this team, he’s still part of the leadership group in the dressing room, and he had plenty to say about the team’s plight Thursday — plenty:

“Starting from myself, I was terrible,” Gleason said. “As a group, we have the character, we have the team in this locker room. There’s no excuses. We have none. We have pretty much a healthy lineup. We didn’t come prepared to play. That was a big game for us, a divisional game. I made a stupid play right off the bat and that hurt us. I know I have to be better.

“We have a lot of leaders in this room and we have to start leading. We have the guys to do it and it starts with me and I have no problem doing that. We do the talk, we’ve got to do the walk, pretty much. We have the guys in this room. We have the talent, we have guys that will work hard, we have the grinders, we have the players, we have the goaltending, we have the defense, the forwards.

“This team is built around a character type of atmosphere and environment. All 23 of us every day come to the rink. We’re all buddies in this room. There’s no excuses. We have the guys to do it. We have the determination in this room. There’s no excuse not to come out with two points. We went through a hard workout today which was well deserved because we stunk yesterday and we stunk (against) Atlanta.

“I could talk to you all night, all day about this, but we’ve got a chance to get two points tomorrow night and get things back rolling on a positive note and get a few wins under our belt.”

The Canes were still in the Eastern Conference’s top eight Thursday morning — just barely — but they’re on pace for 92 points, the same number that wasn’t good enough to get them into the playoffs last season.

And don’t think they don’t remember that.

“This is exactly what happened last year,” Gleason said. “We started off with a pretty good start and we stunk it up in November and December, and that’s what killed us in April. We don’t want to do that. There are signs of that coming right now and we’ve had a few games where we’ve kind of (given) away the points.

“It starts with myself and goes on up. I take all the blame in the world, especially for yesterday’s game. As a group, we have to contribute. Everybody has their own job to do and if we stick to our own jobs and be consistent in our own jobs, we’re going to be a heck of a team. There’s no reason for any changes around here because it’s a solid group. I’ve never been around a more solid group than this group.

“We have the guys in place, from the coaching staff on down. This is a tight-knit group and there are no excuses why we can’t move forward in a positive way, in a positive manner, and get the two points every night.”