Carolina Hurricanes captain Justin Williams was spitting mad after his team squandered a third-period lead in a 6-3 loss to the Lightning Thursday night in Raleigh.“We (expletive) it away, and it’s unacceptable,” Williams is quoted as saying in a story in The News & Observer . True, the Lightning scored four third-period goals to overcome a 3-2 deficit.But there might have been a better explanation for the Lightning’s seventh consecutive win — the fourth time this season it has had a streak of seven or more games."They’re too good,” Carolina head coach Rod Brind’Amour said.As the Lightning, with 58 victories, closes in on the 1995-96 Detroit Red Wings’ NHL single-season record of 62 with seven still to play, teams like the Hurricanes are learning what others already have.The Lightning doesn’t have off nights.And when it does, it usually wins, anyway.“They’re too good to not be good, if you know what I mean," Brind’Amour said. "So that’s a double whammy. We kind of got what we deserved, really, at the end of the day, because they were the better team.” Read Chip Alexander’s full story here.
![Frank Pastor - Assistant Sports Editor](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 50 50"/%3E "Frank Pastor - Assistant Sports Editor")