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Avs at Canes - Game Preview

By Bob Wage

Today is Military Appreciation Day at the RBC and the Colorado Avalanche are in Raleigh to tangle with the Carolina Hurricanes for a matinee game starting at 3PM. The Hurricanes have won two games in a row while the Avs are starting to get healthier and have won three in a row, all on the road. The Canes have been good at breaking up losing streaks, can they do the same as far as winning streaks go?

Colorado will be starting Andrew Raycroft for the fourth straight game. Look for Cam Ward to be in net for Carolina for the seventh consecutive contest.

GP MIN W L T EGA GA GAA SA SV SV% SO
2008 - Cam Ward 47 2724 24 19 3 9 116 2.56 1288 1172 .910 4

GP MIN W L T EGA GA GAA SA SV SV% SO
2008 - Andrew Raycroft 20 1123 12 7 0 1 55 2.94 541 486 .898 0

Ryan Smyth, Milan Hejduk, and Wojtek Wolski are the leading scorers for the Avs.

GP G A P +/- PIM PPG SHG GWG GTG SOG PCT
2008 - Ryan Smyth 59 20 29 49 -6 52 8 1 3 0 194 10.3

GP G A P +/- PIM PPG SHG GWG GTG SOG PCT
2008 - Milan Hejduk 59 21 24 45 -6 8 8 1 2 1 160 13.1

GP G A P +/- PIM PPG SHG GWG GTG SOG PCT
2008 - Wojtek Wolski 58 13 22 35 -3 24 2 1 3 0 121 10.7

The Hurricanes are led by Ray Whitney, Eric Staal, and Tuomo Ruutu.

GP G A P +/- PIM PPG SHG GWG GTG SOG PCT
2008 - Ray Whitney 60 18 31 49 -12 20 3 0 1 2 167 10.8

GP G A P +/- PIM PPG SHG GWG GTG SOG PCT
2008 - Eric Staal 60 27 19 46 4 44 11 0 8 0 269 10.0

GP G A P +/- PIM PPG SHG GWG GTG SOG PCT
2008 - Tuomo Ruutu 57 16 20 36 -3 61 4 0 3 0 122 13.1

The lineup is expected to be the same for the Hurricanes as it has been for the last two victories.

  • Staal, Ruutu, Samsonov
  • Cullen, Whitney, LaRose
  • Brind'Amour, Eaves, Ryan
  • Jokinen, Bayda, Conboy
  • Corvo, Gleason
  • Babchuk, Seidenberg
  • Wallin, Kaberle

Remember, the coaches will do a lot of mixing and matching, including having Conboy help out on the blueline at times. Jokinen will be moved up to play wing on the third line as well.

The Canes can ill afford to take this afternoon off as both Florida and Buffalo won last night, increasing their leads to 3 points over Carolina in the race to the playoffs.

The game will not be broadcast locally on television, so either check out Center Ice, listen to Chuck on 99.9 The Fan, or try the same old online options that have worked well in the past. We will have the "Live Game Thread" as always here starting at about 2:45.

To read about the Avs perspective, you can take a gander at Mile High Hockey.

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Regarding some local hockey news, the Blue Ridge Hockey Conference Tournament has been going on full tilt this weekend. (forgot to mention this earlier, sorry about that). The championship game will be this afternoon at 1:30 at the ECU home ice rink in Greenville, NC. ECU made it to the finals and I believe will be facing a tough George Washington squad. Janeybell has been covering this over at Carolina on Ice. Nice job Janeybell and good luck to the Pirates!