Carolina Hurricanes at New Jersey Devils: Projected Lineups

After Thursday’s win against Les Habs, the Hurricanes opted to forego practice yesterday in exchange for practice this morning. Head coach Bill Peters is rolling the same forward lines that produced four goals, and the defensive pairings have returned to normal after a very brief Slavin-with-Murphy experiment. Eddie Lack was first off the ice and appears to again get the nod in net, coming off a 21-save performance. Lack holds a 1-3-0 record in just four career appearances against the Devils.

Taking advantage of Friday’s day off, Jeff Skinner called in to talk with Adam and Joe (WRALSportsFan), and Jaccob Slavin and Noah Hanifin caught up with Michelle McMahon and the NHL Now crew for an interview and a little wiffle ball (CH.com). Both worth a watch/listen.

Hurricanes Projected Lineup

Brock McGinn – Jordan Staal – Teuvo Teravainen
Sebastian Aho – Elias Lindholm – Phil Di Giuseppe
Jeff Skinner – Derek Ryan – Lee Stempniak
Joakim Nordstrom – Victor Rask – Patrick Brown

Jaccob Slavin – Brett Pesce
Noah Hanifin – Justin Faulk
Klas Dahlbeck – Ryan Murphy

Eddie Lack
Cam Ward

Injuries and Scratches: Jay McClement (lower body), Valentin Zykov (upper body), Matt Tennyson (healthy)

Coming off a 4-2 loss to the Maple Leafs on Thursday, Devils head coach John Hynes must not have liked everything he saw in the morning skate, stating afterwards he may go with a roster of 11 forwards and 7 defensemen tonight. Cory Schneider will start in net; he holds a 6-3-1 record with a 1.80 GAA in 11 career games against the Canes.

After winning their first three match-ups (one via shootout when the teams last met in Newark on Nov. 8), the Devils are looking for a season sweep of the Canes tonight. That hasn’t happened since 1991-92, back when the Canes were the Whalers.

Devils Projected Lineup

Taylor Hall - Travis Zajac - Kyle Palmieri
Adam Henrique - Joseph Blandisi - Beau Bennett
John Quenneville - Pavel Zacha - Stefan Noesen
Miles Wood - Blake Coleman - Blake Pietila

Andy Greene - Ben Lovejoy
John Moore - Damon Severson
Jon Merrill - Dalton Prout

Cory Schneider
Keith Kinkaid

Injuries and scratches: Michael Cammalleri (shoulder), Jacob Josefson (upper body), Devante Smith-Pelly (lower body), Steven Santini (healthy)