The Carolina Hurricanes are in Toronto and ready to play the Maple Leafs tonight at the ACC. Even though it's very early in the season, the Canes are already battling a revolving door of personnel changes on the ice due to injuries and illness. Who will play tonight and who won't? Not even the coaches know for sure I suspect. There are certainly plenty of questions concerning the game. I'll try my best to answer them right now, but we won't know for sure what the answers will be until tonight at game time!
1. Will Cory Stillman play his first game of the year? Yes, but who knows how effective he will be? (Can I answer one question with another question?)
2. Will Bret Hedican play? Yes, he is reportedly over his illness and ready to play.
3. Will Mike Commodore play? Probably not. He left practice early yesterday and his hip is still bothering him.
4. Will Andrew Ladd play? Probably not. He twisted his ankle and it's reportedly still tender.
5. Will the rest of the Canes show up to play in the 1st perod? Yes, they spent more time than they wanted to watching video of the Caps game, and that's enough punishment to make anyone play harder. I'm sure none of them want to endure that again!
Cam Ward will be in the net for the Canes and I'm thinking that Vesa Toskala will be for the Leafs. Most of you have probably heard about Jason Blake's recent announcement that he has a rare form of leukemia. The type that he has is highly treatable and he's not expected to miss any playing time. Will this news fire up the Leafs? Matts Sundin has a 3 game point streak going.
Keep in mind this game will be on the Versus Network, not on FSN tonight. While the broadcast will be in HD, Time Warner customers will not be able to enjoy that luxury until next week. Future Carolina games which are broadcast by Versus will be in HD. Time Warner has also announced some additional games that will be shown in HD format. All the games are away games. Here is the listing. (this list includes the Versus games)
- 10/19 Canes at Pittsburgh
- 10/31 Canes at Florida
- 12/6 Canes at Tampa Bay
- 12/29 Canes at Columbus
- 1/4 Canes at Atlanta
- 1/5 Canes at St. Louis
- 2/2 Canes at Pittsburgh
- 3/19 Canes at Atlanta
- 3/20 Canes at Florida
- 3/29 Canes at Tampa Bay
The channel for HD Versus broadcasts is 283. Non Versus broadcasts will be on channel 291 (MOJO). Will this be an extention of the FSN coverage? I don't know, but we'll have to find out! More about this later.
>>>>>UPDATE>>>>> LSB just reported that Time Warner Cable is revising their schedule and will show the game tonight on channel 283 in HD!
This should be a good one tonight. Both teams are 1-1-1. Win or lose, the Hurricanes need a spirited perfomance and I expect that we will see one.
Lynyrd Skynyrd