Carolina Hurricanes vs. Dallas Stars: Game Preview and Discussion

The Hurricanes look to keep it rolling tonight as they take on the Dallas Stars tonight in Raleigh, a night after Curtis McElhinney stole the show in a win over the Oilers.

Game Notes

• Tonight’s game is the first of two matchups between these two teams in exactly one week. The Hurricanes will visit American Airlines Center next Saturday as the back end of a two-game road trip.
• The Hurricanes are 28-42-3 with six ties all-time against the Stars, but 8-6 at PNC Arena. The teams split their games last season, with both winning on home ice.
• Rod Brind’Amour became the fastest coach to reach 30 wins in franchise history. He reached the mark in 58 games, seven fewer than Peter Laviolette and Rick Ley.
• Tonight will be Micheal Ferland’s 50th game with the Hurricanes and his 300th career NHL game.
• Sebastian Aho has 180 points through three NHL seasons, the seventh-most by a Finnish player in his first three seasons in history. He has a good chance to get into third place by the end of the season (Christian Ruuttu, 196) but Jari Kurri’s 265 and Teemu Selanne’s 234 seem to be a little bit out of reach.
• The Stars are finishing up a three-game road trip, going 1-1 on their swing through Florida while being on opposite ends of a shutout in both games: winning 3-0 over the Panthers on Tuesday and falling 6-0 to the Lightning on Thursday.

Projcted Lineups

Hurricanes

The Hurricanes didn’t skate this morning, but outside of who is in goal (probably Petr Mrazek, although after the show McElhinney put on last night he has a strong case too) there’s no question how they’ll line up:

Nino Niederreiter - Sebastian Aho - Justin Williams
Micheal Ferland - Lucas Wallmark - Teuvo Teravainen
Andrei Svechnikov - Jordan Martinook - Brock McGinn
Warren Foegele - Greg McKegg - Saku Maenalanen

Jaccob Slavin - Dougie Hamilton
Brett Pesce - Justin Faulk
Calvin de Haan - Trevor van Riemsdyk

Petr Mrazek
Curtis McElhinney

Expected Scratch: Jordan Staal (IR upper-body)

Stars

Dallas did take a morning skate this morning, looking to get back on track after being pasted by the Lightning two nights ago. Their big two horses, Jamie Benn (19 points in 15 career games against Carolina) and Tyler Seguin (15 points in 21 games), will be in the lineup, but the story for the Stars this season is their persistent injury troubles. Five players are on IR, and two more, John Klingberg (lower body) and Blake Comeau (upper body), joined the walking wounded in Thursday’s loss. The Stars have lost 262 man-games to injury this season, fourth-most in the NHL.

The Stars called up AHL goal-scoring leader Joel L’Esperance for tonight’s game, and he will make his NHL debut in tonight’s game. Klingberg did not take the morning skate but is a game-time decision to play tonight; if he doesn’t play, Connor Carrick will take his place. Former Hurricanes goaltender Anton Khudobin, holding down the fort while Ben Bishop is out, will start in goal for the Stars. Khudobin is 4-0-1 in his career against the Hurricanes.

Here’s how things look for Dallas:

Jamie Benn - Tyler Seguin - Alexander Radulov
Andrew Cogliano - Jason Dickinson - Jason Spezza
Mattias Janmark - Radek Faksa - Brett Ritchie
Roope Hintz - Joel L’Esperance - Valeri Nichushkin

Esa Lindell - John Klingberg
Miro Heiskanen - Roman Polak
Jamie Oleksiak - Taylor Fedun

Anton Khudobin
Landon Bow

Injuries and Scratches: Connor Carrick (healthy), Julius Honka (healthy), Stephen Johns (IR upper body), Marc Methot (LTIR lower body), Martin Hanzal (IR back), Tyler Pitlick (IR upper body), Ben Bishop (IR upper body)