Devin Cooley had a terrific night. Thirty-four saves, three more pucks ringing off his posts that didn't even count against him, a performance good enough to be the first thing anyone mentions about Calgary's 3-2 win over Carolina. Fine. Give him that.
But if you watched this game and walked away thinking Carolina got robbed, you watched the wrong moment too closely and the right one not closely enough.
The winning goal, Sharangovich's one-timer from the slot at 15:32 of the third, happened because K'Andre Miller couldn't clear a puck deep in the Calgary zone, then got caught watching the puck instead of his assignment on the rush back the other way. A Carolina defenseman lost the sequence that decided the game. Broadcaster Tripp Tracy called it live: Miller was "puck focused," and Sharangovich was alone in the slot because of it.
The chances-for argument has real weight. Carolina finished with more shots, 36-34, and hit iron enough times that Cooley's save total understates how much he had to deal with. Jesperi Kotkaniemi opened the scoring off a rebound, Chatfield buried a point shot with four seconds left in the second to tie it right back up after Calgary had gone ahead. That's a team that kept generating and kept answering. That's a real push.
"We generated more" and "we lost because of a mistake" aren't in conflict. They're both just true. Calgary controlled large stretches of the third period, Carolina's margin for error shrank as the game wore on, and when the moment came for someone to be sharp in a key spot, a Hurricanes defenseman wasn't. You can admire Cooley's night and still land on the obvious conclusion: this loss traces back to Raleigh.
The fatigue argument is real too. Carolina had won five straight on the road and had played the night before in Winnipeg. A letdown against a team desperate for its first win at home was always live. That explains tired legs. The read that decided the final score was still Miller's to make. Tired teams have to make it anyway. He didn't, and pretending the goaltender stole the game lets everyone look away from the part that actually cost Carolina.
Cooley earned the praise. Miller is why Carolina lost this game.
