It will be the battle of good versus evil tonight as the Carolina Hurricanes take on the Anaheim Ducks as part of their Star Wars Night. The Hurricanes dropped a 3-2 overtime decision on Satirday after storming back against the Los Angeles Kings but to no avail. The Ducks have struggled as of late, going 2-4-4 in their last ten games as a result of injuries to multiple valuable players. Anaheim will get some reinforcements tonight as captain Ryan Getzlaf returns. Getzlaf hasn’t played since his last game against the Hurricanes after he took a puck to the face and suffered a fractured cheekbone.
John Gibson is the confirmed starter for the Ducks. Despite an above league average .920 save percentage, Gibson has gone 8-10-3 and has a 2.96 goals against average. Eric Stephens of the Orange County Register confirms that Ducks defenseman Andy Welinski will make his NHL debut. This will be the second and final meeting of the season between the two teams.
The Canes did not skate this morning, so if there are any lineup changes we won’t know about them until the pregame warmup. What we do know, as confirmed by John Forslund with Adam and Joe this afternoon, is that Scott Darling will get the call in net tonight, with Cam Ward in line to face Vegas tomorrow.
Here are the lines the Canes are rolling with tonight:
Sebastian Aho - Jordan Staal - Teuvo Teravainen
Jeff Skinner - Derek Ryan - Justin Williams
Brock McGinn - Victor Rask - Elias Lindholm
Joakim Nordstrom - Marcus Kruger - Josh Jooris
Jaccob Slavin - Brett Pesce
Haydn Fleury - Justin Faulk
Noah Hanifin - Trevor van Riemsdyk
Scott Darling
Cam Ward
Here are the lines for the Ducks tonight:
Rickard Rakell - Ryan Getzlaf - Corey Perry
Andrew Cogliano - Adam Henrique - Jakob Silfverberg
Joesph Blandisi - Antoine Vermette - Ondrej Kase
Logan Shaw - Derek Grant - Chris Wagner
Cam Fowler - Josh Manson
Francois Beauchemin - Brandon Montour
Kevin Bieksa - Andy Welinski
John Gibson
Ryan Miller