The Carolina Hurricanes (26-31-7) will take on the Atlanta Thrashers, (28-25-10) early this evening at Philips Arena for another Southeast Showdown, this time with the game starting at 5 p.m. The playing roster will remain the same as it was last night for the Hurricanes except that Manny Legace will get the start in goal.
Both teams lost last night as the Canes dropped one to the Florida Panthers, 4-1 and the Thrashers lost in Tampa, 6-2.
Carolina could have jumped over two teams in the standings last night with a win, (Panthers and Islanders), but now find themselves 9 points out of a playoff spot as they remain in 14th place in the conference.
Legace has looked very good in goal lately and has a four game winning streak.
There is no official word yet on who will start for Atlanta. The Thrashers fell out of 8th place last night with their loss and will be looking to get back into the playoff picture. Do they have a realistic chance without their former captain, Ilya Kovalchuk?
The Canes will be hoping to start another winning streak after having their season best seven game stretch ruined last night.
Brandon Sutter currently has a five game scoring streak.
Paul Maurice mixed the lines up a bit last night as Erik Cole was moved to the Eric Staal and Ray Whitney line. Jussi Jokinen was matched with Tuomo Ruutu and Brandon Sutter. The other lines were fluid as well.
Will the coach go back to the lines which brought so much success during "The Streak", or will he continue to experiment?
The game will not be televised by FS Carolinas and is not scheduled to be televised in Atlanta, but the Thrashers might broadcast their jumbotron feed over Center Ice so that some video is available. Usually when this happens, they try to synch in the radio broadcast with the video.
It's not exactly first class and might remind some of a high school production, but this is the NHL, what do you expect?
It does not seem to be the best way to take advantage of the hype of the Olympics, just one week after the gold medal game captured record breaking television audiences, but I'm sure Gary Bettman knows what he's doing.
We will have our open thread available at 4:30.