Hope you enjoyed your three day break as the Hurricanes are right back in action tonight.
The Canes head further west into Canada as they play the first half of the Alberta Duo with the Calgary Flames. Unlike most times when the Canes are against one of the Alberta teams, their next game isn’t against the other. In a weird quirk, the Canes will head out even further west to Vancouver on Tuesday before coming back to Alberta on Thursday to play Edmonton before ending the State Fair Road trip against the Blues next week.
On the surface, you’d be excused for having confidence on going into Calgary tonight. Even in a division that many consider the weakest in the NHL they have just one win on the young season—a 4-2 win over Anaheim just this past Tuesday. Every other game has been just a demolition, including their recent 6-2 loss to Vegas on Thursday. Tonight though begins a four-game home stretch in the iconic Saddledome, the last visit the Hurricanes will make to the arena that opened up in the early 80’s. Next season, Calgary is set to go to a nice and shiny new arena with all the bells and whistles, but this year has quickly become about celebrating the place they have called home for over 40 years.
With that, expect some sort of feature about how people have to walk a catwalk over the ice in order to get to the press box, and some sort of expression of how happy they are they won’t have to do it again.
When you try to look at the stats to find a bright spot on offense for Calgary so far you just can’t. There aren’t any players with a positive +/-, their leading goal scorers have all of two on the season, the most points anyone has is four, and both goalies have save percentages well under .850 with GAA’s that are above four. It’s just beyond clear that they are looking to reset as half the current roster is under 26, and the allure of a farewell for the old building plus the shiny new building should be enough to satiate fans while they try to recover.
If there’s something that Calgary has in their favor it’s the back-to-back versus rest factor. The Flames haven’t played since Thursday while the Canes traveled for the second afternoon in a row. They’re also still working in two prospects while at least two regulars remain out in Taylor Hall and Jordan Staal. It’s also very unlikely that Seth Jarvis will join the team tonight on the ice as they won’t have any sort of morning skate today.
That lack of morning skate plus the success of the team against a surprisingly good Winnipeg team means you shouldn’t expect any line changes from Rod Brind’Amour. Honestly, there shouldn’t be. Jackson Blake and Logan Stankoven functioned just fine with Bradly Naddeau on the other side, and the line centered by Jesperi Kotkaniemi with Eric Robinson and Felix Unger-Sorum helped get Kotkaniemi his first goal in a year. The one change you should see is between the pipes as Brandon Bussi will get his first action in a week. It’s not because of his performance against Chicago, it’s simply been that Pyotr Kochetkov has played well enough with enough space in between games to earn three starts in a row.
We’ll see how Bussi looks after the time off, as this way the schedule falls this week expect to see more of a rotation over the next four games. It does go a long way to quieting the murmuring about the Canes trying to acquire Connor Hellebuyck, whose suspension is set to end for Winnipeg on Friday. The Jets weren’t happy with offeres up until now, and it’s pretty unlikely the Canes will change it considering how the tandem has done so far. We’ll see if Bussi can continue the good play.
If you aren’t in the home of the 1988 Winter Olympics tonight, here’s how you can catch the action:
Time: 8 PM Eastern
Location: Scotiabank Saddledome — Calgary, Alberta Canada
TV: Hurricanes Hockey Network. Hanna Yates will handle the pregame duties at 7:30, and then Mike Maniscalco handles play-by-play with Tripp Tracy providing color—still waiting on the NHL and Direct TV to work things out.
Streaming Video: Hurricanes Hockey Network on Prime Video in the Hurricanes Footprint. Outside you’ll need to use the ESPN app and have at least an ESPN Select subscription, which comes with ESPN Ultimate.
Radio: The pregame Storm Watch with Adam Gold on 99.9 The Fan starts at 7:30 PM, At 8 PM radio (consisting of 99.9, 730 The Game in Charlotte, ESPN New Bern 107.5/1490, and ESPN Greenville 107.5/1570) will pick up the Mike Maniscalco and Tripp Tracy TV simulcast.
Lines: (Per DraftKings) Hurricanes -218, -1.5 (+120) /Flames +180, +1.5 (-142). O/U 6.5 +110/-130