Carolina Hurricanes at New York Rangers: Game Preview and Discussion

The vagaries of travel at the holidays catch up with the Carolina Hurricanes tonight, who were prevented from flying to New York the customary day before a game and flew in this afternoon. Due to the CBA-mandated holiday break, preventing any team activity including flights on Christmas or on either of the two days surrounding, the Hurricanes took their morning skate at PNC Arena this morning, then headed to the Big Apple for a date with the New York Rangers tonight at the Canes’ personal house of horrors.

Game Notes

• This is the Hurricanes’ final visit to MSG this season. The Rangers have won both previous meetings, taking a 4-2 win at PNC Arena on November 7 and a 3-2 decision at MSG twenty days later, despite the Canes outshooting the Rangers by a combined 90-44 in the two games.
• Yeah, Henrik Lundqvist, we know, we know.
• The teams will see each other again on February 21 at PNC Arena. Carolina is 56-74-7 with nine ties all-time against the Rangers, and 20-45-4 with five ties at MSG.
• It would be a good time for the Hurricanes to stop their run of futility against the rest of the Metro tonight, given that four of their next six games are within the division. Carolina is 2-6-1 against the Metro this season, the worst mark of any team in the division, while the Rangers are barely keeping their head above water on the strength of a 6-3-0 mark against the Metro.
• A pair of point streaks are on the line tonight. Teuvo Teravainen has assists in six straight games, while Lucas Wallmark is riding a four-game point streak (two goals, three assists), the longest streak of his career.
• Jordan Staal will play his 500th career game with the Hurricanes tonight. He’s 70 games shy of hitting 1,000 for his career, and since he joined the Hurricanes on draft day in 2012, the captain has the sixth-highest faceoff win percentage in the league at 55.8%.
• Staal’s 30 points in 58 career games against the Rangers is by far and away the most of any Hurricanes player. In fact, the only other player even in double digits is Dougie Hamilton, who has ten points in 20 career games against the Rangers.
• And speaking of the adventure that is holiday travel, Warren Foegele and Brock McGinn missed the morning skate because of difficulties in returning to Raleigh following the Christmas holiday. (Rod Brind’Amour, tongue firmly in cheek, declared that they would be expected to be the two best players on the ice tonight as their punishment.)

Projected Lineups

Hurricanes

Andrei Svechnikov - Jordan Staal - Warren Foegele
Nino Niederreiter - Sebastian Aho - Teuvo Teravainen
Ryan Dzingel - Erik Haula - Martin Necas
Brock McGinn - Lucas Wallmark - Jordan Martinook

Jaccob Slavin - Dougie Hamilton
Joel Edmundson - Brett Pesce
Jake Gardiner - Trevor van Riemsdyk

James Reimer
Petr Mrazek

Injuries and Scratches: Haydn Fleury (healthy)

Rangers

Artemi Panarin - Ryan Strome - Jesper Fast
Chris Kreider - Mika Zibanejad - Pavel Buchnevich
Brendan Lemieux - Filip Chytil - Kaapo Kakko
Greg McKegg - Brett Howden - Brendan Smith

Brady Skjei - Jacob Trouba
Ryan Lindgren - Adam Fox
Marc Staal - Tony DeAngelo

Henrik Lundqvist
Alexandar Georgiev

Injuries and Scratches: Libor Hajek (knee), Phil Di Giuseppe (healthy), Micheal Haley (healthy)