What - Game 27 (14-11-1)
When - 10 p.m., Saturday, Dec. 9
Where - Rogers Arena; Vancouver, BC, Canada
How to Watch - Bally Sports South
The Carolina Hurricanes look to right the ship against the Vancouver Canucks (17-9-1) tonight.
It's been tough sledding for Carolina as of late as the team has lost three straight and really not looked like themselves in the last two outings.
A 6-1 loss to the Edmonton Oilers followed by a 3-2 loss to the Calgary Flames left a bad taste in many mouths and the Hurricanes once again started calling out teammates for a lack of commitment to their game.
"We have some guys doing it the way we want to do it and some guys that aren't," said Stefan Noesen.
"We've got a lot of guys that aren't pulling their weight," said Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour following the loss in Calgary. "Plain and simple. Can read into that what you want, but we're not going to win if we don't have 20 guys going. We have some guys going every night, contributing and doing what they do, but there's a lot of others that need to look in the mirror."
The Canes have struggled amongst all three position groups and if they want to get this back on track, they need more from everyone.
Antti Raanta is expected to get the start in net and Andrei Svechnikov may be a game-time decision, but Brind'Amour didn't sound too confident in his availability for tonight.
"I'm not holding my breath there," Brind'Amour said in regards to Svechnikov.
The Canucks came out of the gate hot but have since been hit or miss. Over their last 10 games, they've alternated wins and losses every game. They won their last game 2-0 over the Minnesota Wild.
The top guys have been good for Vancouver with Elias Pettersson, Quinn Hughes, J.T. Miller and Brock Boeser all having 30+ points on the season.
Along with them, goaltender Thatcher Demko has had a good bounce back year with a 0.917 save percentage over 19 games.
Streaks
- Jaccob Slavin has registered an assist in back-to-back games (2a)
Milestone Watch
- Jordan Staal will play in his 1,200th career NHL game tonight. He will be the 11th active player to reach that milestone. From his 2006 draft class, only Phil Kessel ( 1,286) has played more games.
- Seth Jarvis is two points shy of 100 career points.
Game Notes
- The Carolina Hurricanes are 32-34-11-6 all-time against the Vancouver Canucks.
- Last season, Carolina won the season series 1-0-1 with a 3-2 win and 4-3 shootout loss.
- In their last 11 meetings, the Canes are 7-2-2.
- Jalen Chatfield played 18 games as a Canuck and Ian Cole (75 games) and Phil Di Giuseppe (147 games) were once Hurricanes.
- Vancouver President of Hockey Operations Jim Rutherford was Hartford/Carolina's GM from 1994 to 2014.
Key Matchups
Starting Goalies
- Antti Raanta: 6-4-0; 0.863 Sv%; 3.33 GAA
- Thatcher Demko: 12-7-0; 0.918 Sv%; 2.46 GAA
Leading Scorers
- Goals - Teuvo Teravainen (11) / Brock Boeser (18)
- Points - Sebastian Aho (22) / J.T. Miller (39)
Power Play
- Carolina - 20.7% (16th)
- Vancouver - 26.8% (5th)
Penalty Kill
- Carolina - 78.3% (19th)
- Vancouver - 74.7% (27th)
Hurricanes Projected Lineup
Teuvo Teravainen - Sebastian Aho - Martin Necas
Michael Bunting - Jesperi Kotkaniemi - Seth Jarvis
Jordan Martinook - Jordan Staal - Jesper Fast
Brendan Lemieux - Jack Drury - Stefan Noesen
Jaccob Slavin - Brent Burns
Brady Skjei - Brett Pesce
Dmitry Orlov - Jalen Chatfield
Antti Raanta
Pyotr Kochetkov
Injuries and Scratches: Tony DeAngelo, Andrei Svechnikov (UBI)* Frederik Andersen (blood clotting issue)
*Rod Brind'Amour stated that Andrei Svechnikov would probably not be ready to go tonight.
Canucks Projected Lineup
Ilya Mikheyev - Elias Pettersson - Sam Lafferty
Nils Hoglander - J.T. Miller - Brock Boeser
Dakota Joshua - Teddy Blueger - Conor Garland
Andrei Kuzmenko - Nils Aman - Phil Di Giuseppe
Quinn Hughes - Flilip Hronek
Nikita Zadorov - Tyler Myers
Ian Cole - Noah Juulsen
Thatcher Demko
Casey DeSmith
Injuries and Scratches: Mark Friedman, Linus Karlsson, Guillaume Brisebois (UBI), Tucker Poolman (head), Carson Soucy (foot), Pius Suter (LBI)
Recent Articles