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Carolina Hurricanes at Montreal Canadiens
Saturday, September 21, 2013 - 7:00 pm EDT
Bell Centre - Montreal, Que
Radio - 99.9 The Fan (TV RDS only in Canada)
SB Nation Rival Blog: Eyes on the Prize (twitter @HabsEOTP)
Hurricanes Preseason Record: 0-3-0
Canadiens Preseason Record: 1-1-1
The first leg of the Hurricanes preseason schedule comes to a close tonight in Montreal, and judging by the results thus far, not a moment too soon. The Hurricanes have played and lost three games in the last three nights (in glorious fashion), and will attempt to reverse that trend tonight before heading back to Raleigh to analyze and regroup for next week's games.
Head coach Kirk Muller contends that this week's games have been about evaluating talent, and he has certainly given all the non-roster regulars a fair shot at a role on the squad between line combinations and minutes played. But he also remarked that the team wasn't ready to play last night, and the door will be closed quickly on those opportunities (audio). Another round of roster cuts is expected after tonight's game.
The Canes have just released tonight's roster:
Forwards - Jordan Staal, Eric Staal, Jared Staal, Nathan Gerbe, Tuomo Ruutu, Radek Dvorak, Jiri Tlusty, Riley Nash, Drayson Bowman, Patrick Dwyer, Jeff Skinner, Chris Terry
Defense - Tim Gleason, Ryan Murphy, Matt Corrente, Jay Harrison, Ron Hainsey, Brett Bellemore
Anton Khudobin is in net as expected, with Justin Peters backing up.
Notable absences - Alexander Semin, Andrej Sekera, Justin Faulk (Faulk and Sekera have both played the previous two nights). Elias Lindholm is also not in the lineup. We'll provide updates and post-skate audio as more information becomes available.
[Here] is the lineup for the Canadiens tonight. Andrei Markov, Tomas Plekanec, and Rene Bourque all make their preseason debuts.
The game thread will open at 6:30 pm. See you there. Don't forget to untuck your jersey.