TORONTO - For Carolina Hurricanes forward Sami Kapanen, Tuesday's 5-2 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs didn't feel like a breath of fresh air.
It was a breath of fresh air that made the difference.
After going weeks without a goal, Kapanen had a hat trick for the Canes to give them their first road win since Nov. 8.
Kapanen said after the game that he has been bothered by a chest cold and Tuesday was the first day in weeks he didn't feel its effects.
Certainly, his recent stats have been sickly. After scoring 11 goals in the first 19 games, he hadn't scored a goal since Nov. 9 and had just two assists in the seven games since then.
"I haven't played that well lately," Kapanen said. "I think I was a little out of sync and feeling pressure to score goals. I don't think I was skating very well the past few games, and my game is based on skating."
For those struggles, he blames his health.
He isn't the passer that Ron Francis is and he doesn't have Jeff O'Neill's blistering shot, although he's above average in both categories.
What makes Kapanen an All-Star is his skating. When he couldn't breathe, he couldn't skate.
He'd find himself lost out on the ice, unable to muster the bursts of speed that his game is built around. He'd come back to the bench gasping for air, only to be sent back out for a power play.
At Tuesday's morning skate, he inhaled deeply to find his lungs clear. That may make him the first person ever to credit the frigid winds of Toronto for a return to respiratory health, but there's no arguing with the results.
His return to form also coincided with the breakup of the formidable O'Neill-Francis-Kapanen line, which had scored one goal in seven games. Playing instead with Bates Battaglia and Rod Brind'Amour, Kapanen clicked with them almost immediately.
"I guess the guys weren't too pleased about that, Ronnie and O," Kapanen said. "They were joking about it. Usually when you change the lines it means you're struggling. You want to get back and that first goal really helped a lot."
He tapped a Battaglia pass out of the corner off the post and in 5:25 into the game for his first goal since Nov. 9. After Toronto scored twice, Shane Willis set up Sandis Ozolinsh from behind the net to tie it and rookie Erik Cole, getting the chance to play with Francis and O'Neill, scored the first power-play goal of his career to make it 3-2.
That's not a typo. It ended an 0-for-25 skid on the power play that dated back to Nov. 13. Francis set it up for his first assist since Nov. 9. After Cole's goal with 42 seconds left in the first gave the Canes the lead, Carolina struggled through a lackluster second period that coach Paul Maurice ranked among the worst of the season.
Tom Barrasso was left to fend for himself, keeping the Leafs off the board, as the Canes were outshot 12-4. "I ought to go out and give him a kiss," Maurice said after the game.
"That's what he gets paid for," Francis said. The Canes' biggest stand came in the third after a Marek Malik penalty expired. The Leafs kept the puck in the Carolina zone for almost two minutes. Chance after chance piled up as it seemed a Toronto goal was all but certain, especially after Brind'Amour took a shot in the right foot. But he stayed on the ice, dragging the foot along behind him, and the Canes finally cleared the puck. "We came out and we were still ahead," Barrasso said. "That's a real positive thing, despite the fact we were still struggling quite a bit." Seven minutes later, Ozolinsh set up Kapanen's second goal to make it 4-2 with 5:12 to play and that precarious one-goal lead wasn't a problem anymore.
"When he gets one," Maurice said of Kapanen, "chances are there's another one coming somewhere." Not just one. Kapanen added an empty-netter for the hat trick, his first since March 1998. That might be the best medicine of all.