Carolina Hurricanes vs Tampa Bay Lightning: Preseason Preview, Rosters, How to Watch

Carolina Hurricanes vs Tampa Bay Lightning
September 30, 2016 - 7:30 PM
PNC Arena - Raleigh, North Carolina
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Game Notes

• After an impressive start to their preseason schedule, the Carolina Hurricanes will play their first home game since April. Following Friday’s matchup, the Canes will go back on the road to take on the Minnesota Wild on Sunday.
• This is the second time Carolina has gone up against Tampa Bay over the past week. The Canes took home a 3-2 win on Tuesday at Amalie Arena thanks to goals from Brody Sutter, Lucas Wallmark and Jeff Skinner.
• Cam Ward and Eddie Lack have both been stellar in net through the first two preseason games. Lack shutout the Capitals through two periods on Monday prior to Alex Nedeljkovic coming in for the third period and overtime. Ward rendered the same results on Tuesday in Tampa prior to Daniel Altshuller entering the game. If the alternating goalie tactic continues for Carolina, expect Lack to get the nod in net.
• Hurricanes assistant coach Steve Smith said that Sebastian Aho and Teuvo Teravainen may be in the lineup on Friday night, and if not Friday, then Sunday night in Minnesota. Elias Lindholm centered the two Finns in training camp practice on Thursday.
• Last night was a big night for a couple of guys in these organizations. Lightning star Steven Stamkos and Canes bench boss Bill Peters helped Team Canada cap off a World Cup of Hockey championship run with a dramatic 2-1 victory against Team Europe.
• Since Canada did end things on Thursday, Peters will likely be in attendance for Friday’s home game. Instead of being behind the bench, he will be watching from the press box.
• IMPORTANT NOTE: Friday night’s game against the Lightning will be live streamed with play-by-play commentary from John Forslund and Tripp Tracy on CarolinaHurricanes.com. The stream will be geo-gated to the local broadcast area. Please remember that links to illegal or pirated streams are strictly prohibited under the new SB Nation Community Guidelines, so do not request them or provide them here. Any comment that includes illegal stream links will be deleted.

Roster Projections

This will be a little bit of a guessing game for now. Neither team has announced what roster they will be throwing on the ice, but we can make some inferences.

Here’s how Group A lined up at Hurricanes practice on Thursday.

Jeff Skinner - Victor Rask - Lee Stempniak
Joakim Nordstrom - Jordan Staal - Andrej Nestrasil
Sebastian Aho - Elias Lindholm - Teuvo Teravainen
Bryan Bickell - Jay McClement - Viktor Stalberg
Brock McGinn - Derek Ryan - Phil Di Giuseppe

Jaccob Slavin - Justin Faulk
Ron Hainsey - Brett Pesce
Noah Hanifin - Matt Tennyson
Trevor Carrick - Roland McKeown

Cam Ward
Eddie Lack

There’s a common theme with Group A - it’s compiled of players who are expected to either make the big club or come very close to doing so. While this doesn’t mean that we’ll see these guys on Friday, it is promising to see that the lines are starting to fall together.

Group B was made up of mostly Charlotte and junior bound players, including the likes of Haydn Fleury, Julien Gauthier, Jake Bean, Valentin Zykov and Lucas Wallmark, among others.

Ryan Murphy was not at practice on Thursday due to flu-like symptoms.

As for Tampa Bay, their lineup on Thursday night against the Panthers gives us some clues as to what we might see from them.

In all likelihood, the Lightning will go with a different group of players because they are playing a back-to-back set.

We will update this post once the lineups are set in stone.