Carolina Hurricanes vs. Washington Capitals: Preview and Exhibition Game Hub

HOCKEY!

For the first time since March 10, the Carolina Hurricanes will play a hockey game Wednesday afternoon. The Canes will take on the rival Capitals in the Toronto “bubble” for an exhibition game, three days before the Hurricanes are set to face off with the New York Rangers in games that matter.

After months away from competition, Wednesday will provide the Canes their lone opportunity to tune things up against another team before the playoffs start. Carolina will be without defensemen Dougie Hamilton and Brett Pesce, as well as forward Martin Necas for the exhibition.

Expect to see both James Reimer and Petr Mrazek get some time in net Wednesday, as both goalies played well during the regular season and should compete for starts when the playoffs start up. Expanded rosters for this game will also allow the Canes to get seven defensemen on the ice, letting Sami Vatanen, Haydn Fleury and Trevor van Riemsdyk all get the opportunity to tune up with Pesce and Hamilton hurt.

On the other side of things, the Caps come into this tuneup in a different situation than the Canes. After finishing with the most points in the Metropolitan Division, the Capitals won’t have to play a qualifying round series, just a few games to determine seeding.

Community Guidelines Reminder

The results of this one don’t matter at all, but it will sure be good to see Hurricanes hockey again. It’s been a while and everyone is excited to be here, so here’s something we wrote at the beginning of last year’s playoffs to remind everyone of our community guidelines as we head back into playoff hockey. Check it out.

Game Notes

• The Hurricanes and Capitals have played 27 exhibition games since the Canes relocated to Raleigh. The Canes have a 16-10-1 record in those 27 games.
• The Canes and Caps each won two of the four regular season meetings between the two, with Carolina going 2-2-0 and Washington going 2-1-1. Carolina won the first two meetings, with Washington winning the last two.
• The Canes and Capitals played two exhibition games against each other this preseason. The Capitals won both, with Sebastian Aho, Brock McGinn, Nino Niederreiter and Janne Kuokkanen scoring between the two games.
• The Hurricanes played two games in Scotiabank Arena this year. One was an 8-6 loss and the other was a 6-3 win, highlighted by a winning performance from EBUG David Ayres.

Projected Lines

Carolina Hurricanes

Andrei Svechnikov - Sebastian Aho - Teuvo Teravainen
Nino Niederreiter - Vincent Trochek - Warren Foegele
Ryan Dzingel - Jordan Staal - Justin Williams
Brock McGinn - Morgan Geekie - Jordan Martinook
Steven Lorentz

Jaccob Slavin - Sami Vatanen
Brady Skjei - Joel Edmundson
Jake Gardiner - Trevor van Riemsdyk
Haydn Fleury

Petr Mrazek
James Reimer

Washington Capitals

Alex Ovechkin - Evgeny Kuznetsov - Tom Wilson
Jakub Vrana - Nicklas Backstrom - T.J. Oshie
Carl Hagelin - Lars Eller - Ilya Kovalchuk
Richard Panik - Nic Dowd - Garnet Hathaway
Travis Boyd

Michal Kempny - John Carlson
Brenden Dillon - Dmitri Orlov
Jonas Siegenthaler - Nick Jensen
Radko Gudas

Braden Holtby
Vitek Vanecek