Canes Take on Penguins Tonight: Preview

Carolina Hurricanes at Pittsburgh Penguins
September 22, 2015 - 7:00 pm ET
CONSOL Energy Center - Pittsburgh, PA
TV - NHL Network (tape delay, replay at 3:00 am)
Radio - WRALSportsFan.com website and mobile app
SB Nation Rival Blog - Pensburgh

Game Notes

• The Canes and Penguins will meet twice this preseason, first tonight in Pittsburgh, then for the preseason closer in Raleigh on October 2nd. Both teams played last night on the road, and both played in a 3-on-3 overtime situation. For the Canes it was merely exhibition, Kris Versteeg's overtime goal 57 seconds into the extra period providing a bit of a moral victory in an already-determined 2-0 shutout loss to the Capitals. The Penguins and Blue Jackets played overtime for real, taking 65 minutes plus three shooters apiece to break the seal when Beau Bennett finally scored the game-decider in a 1-0 shootout win for the Penguins. The mandatory 3-on-3 overtime format will not be in effect for tonight's game so overtime will only be played if required to settle the outcome.
• The Penguins saved the debut of their superstars for their home crowd. Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang, Marc-Andre Fleury, and highly-touted newcomer Phil Kessel are all in tonight's line-up.
• For the Hurricanes, the trio of Jeff Skinner, Elias Lindholm and Victor Rask will skate as the 'veteran' top forward line. Joakim Nordstrom will make his Canes debut after missing the first couple of days of training camp due to visa issues. Two more Swedes, Erik Karlsson and Lucas Wallmark, will round out the offense.
• On defense, Noah Hanifin will make his highly anticipated start, along with Jaccob Slavin, a 2012 draftee. They'll be mentored by Justin Faulk and James Wisniewski, making his Canes debut. Cam Ward will start in net, backed up by Rasmus Tirronen.
• After the fiasco that was last night's unexpected television blackout across the entire Hurricanes home market, fans can prepare tonight to settle in and listen in to the radio feed. Just a reminder, the preseason radio broadcast will not be available via the 99.9 The Fan radio station, but on the WRALSportsFan website and mobile app. NHL Network is providing TV coverage of tonight's game, but it won't air on the network until 3:00 am on tape delay.

Lineups

Hurricanes

Jeff Skinner - Victor Rask - Elias Lindholm
Nathan Gerbe - Joakim Nordstrom - Chris Terry
Brock McGinn - Lucas Wallmark - Erik Karlsson
Brendan Woods - T.J. Hensick - Patrick Brown

Noah Hanifin - Justin Faulk
Jaccob Slavin - James Wisniewski
Rasmus Rissanen - Roland McKeown

Cam Ward
Rasmus Tirronen

Penguins

Chris Kunitz - Sidney Crosby - Phil Kessel
Sergei Plotnikov - Evgeni Malkin - Patric Hornqvist
Pascal Dupuis - Jean-Sebastian Dea - Daniel Sprong
Dominik Uher - Kevin Porter - Tyler Biggs

Olli Maatta - Kris Letang
Sergei Gonchar - Brian Dumoulin
Adam Clendening - Ian Cole
Barry Goers - Harrison Ruopp

Marc-Andre Fleury
Matt Murray