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Scoring first is as big a topic in the Toronto Maple Leafs’ dressing room as H1N1 flu is everywhere else.

The latter topic, by the way, remains off-limits in the Leafs’ dressing room after news leaked out that some players were vaccinated amid concern an infection could have spread to the Leafs from their farm team, the Toronto Marlies. Leafs head coach Ron Wilson said he has not had the shot and the players remained under orders to keep quiet.

That left obsessing over relatively obscure statistics as the topic du jour. However, perusing NHL statistics shows there is something to scoring first, which the Leafs have accomplished only once in 13 games this season.

Of the remaining 29 teams in the league, 22 have records above .500 in games in which they score the first goal.

And scoring first is important tonight for the Leafs because their opponents are in an even bigger swoon than they are. The Carolina Hurricanes have not won in their last 10 games (0-7-3) and technically nosed the Leafs out of 30th and last place overall yesterday. Although both teams have seven points, the Hurricanes have played one less game.

To snare the lofty prize of 29th-place overall, then, it stands to reason the Leafs need to score first and then play the way they have of late in the latter two periods, which is not bad at all.

“You want to get a jump on them early, fan that negative atmosphere they probably have in their mind,” Wilson said, adding that he speaks from experience. “It’s no different than [what’s happened to] us. I think that’s what a team wants to do. You see a wounded animal, you jump all over it.”

To that end, the coaches have tried several psychological ploys to spark their players, including trying to convince them they were behind 2-0 before the opening faceoff. All to no avail, Wilson sadly conceded.

“We’re not good enough to say, ‘Okay, we’re going to score three goals in the first period,’” Wilson said. “We’re in last place in the league, we’re just trying to find our way here.”

Wilson declined to say if Jonas Gustavsson will start in goal tonight and also in tomorrow’s game at home against the Detroit Red Wings. In the only lineup change, defenceman Jeff Finger will replace Garnet Exelby.

On the other side of the fence, easygoing Raleigh is a long way from hockey-preoccupied Toronto, but the teams have a lot in common, and some differences, too.

While Hurricanes head coach Paul Maurice – just a season removed from his post behind the Toronto bench – acknowledges the public scrutiny is a little easier to deal with in Raleigh, internal expectations aren’t.

The Hurricanes have won a Stanley Cup, been to a Cup final and played in an Eastern Conference final in the past eight years, so while the Leafs came into this season hoping to make the playoffs for the first time in four years, that won’t cut it in Raleigh.

“The expectation level internally is different,” Maurice said. “Inside the Carolina Hurricane house, there is more pressure, based on the last seven, eight, nine seasons.

“Our goal is to make the playoffs and compete for a Stanley Cup, that’s an in-house philosophy. We’re built to believe that.”

Another difference, Maurice said, is there’s less risk for those involved to take the blame when things go wrong.

“When there’s less external pressure, there’s less temptation to fragment as a group, there’s less pressure to protect yourself,” he said. “So if you want to know why we got off to a slow start, I think it’s my responsibility. Jim Rutherford will say it’s his responsibility, for whatever reason he feels that way, and every player in the room will stand up and say, ‘I haven’t played the way I need to play.’

“You can say that here,” Maurice said. “It will hit the airwaves and it will be taken as a comment, [in Toronto] you don’t have statements like that often enough because of fear.”

Regardless, the two teams are on parallel paths for now. Carolina has just 28 goals this year in 14 games, worst in the East, worse even than punchless Toronto, which has 31 goals in 13 games.

“Our record isn’t indicative of how we’ve been playing,” Carolina captain Rod Brind’Amour said. “We just haven’t found a way to get it done. If you’re not scoring a lot of goals, it puts a lot of pressure on your whole game. A little mistake here or there seems to cost you the whole game, where if you’re scoring goals, you can come back from mistakes.”

The Hurricanes were an unexpected success story last season when they made the Eastern final. But they started off slowly enough that Rutherford, the long-time general manager, fired Peter Laviolette on Dec. 3 and installed his friend Maurice for his second go-round with the club. The Hurricanes were merely 12-11-2 at that point last year, a mark that would look pretty good now given they’re 2-9-3.

Rutherford, for the record, says he won’t be firing his good friend again any time soon: “I wouldn’t [change coaches] in short order. You have to understand my change last year was due to things that had happened over a two-year period where things were faltering. I’m not going to make a decision like that over 15 or 20 games.”