Canes make most of practice

With 19 days before the season opener, the Canes plan to take advantage of every minute. There is no down time. "It leaves you not a tremendous amount of prep time," coach Paul Maurice said today. "That being said, that's why this whole camp is designed the way it is — to give ourselves a chance. "We're going to get into power play, penalty killing in two days, on day four. So we're trying to get this thing going right from the start. I don't think we foresee a practice in our group where we're just getting up and down the ice. ... "We're going out with a purpose every day, to accomplish something, to work on something, explain things and drive that pace up. So there's a real point to every time we touch the puck." Much of today's Group A practice was built around the battles — one on one, then two on two, then three on three. It was spirited and it was competitive. On one play, Eric Staal pounded Chad LaRose in...