Carolina Hurricanes vs. St Louis Blues: Game Preview

The Carolina Hurricanes look to bounce back after two very different losses — a game with a slow start against the Florida Panthers, and a game with just a few poor shifts against the Philadelphia Flyers. (Also, don’t feel bad about that Panthers loss: they’ve yet to win again since defeating the Hurricanes and did, in fact, get stomped on by the New Jersey Devils the other day.)

Despite the losses, the Hurricanes still sit atop the Metropolitan Division. The St. Louis Blues, meanwhile, have quietly taken over the lead in the Central. Both the Blues and Hurricanes are tied, points-wise, with the number two teams in their division, so both teams will be looking for a win to help pull away a bit from the competition.

From the Blues’ perspective, this is a bit of a weird game. It’s a one-game road trip — the Blues were at home on Thursday and are back at home on Sunday for a tilt against Edmonton — that comes at a time where the team is falling into a bit of a rut. They’ve lost three of their last five games, including two overtime losses. The team might be slowing down a bit from their hot start.

Before the game starts, let’s see how the two teams stack up so far this season:

Game Notes

• Teuvo Teravainen is sitting on 99 career goals. Let’s look for number 100 tonight.
• This is Justin Faulk’s first game back in PNC Arena since being traded to the Blues in 2019. In 137 games with the Blues, the offensive defenseman has 14 goals and 32 assists.
• Speaking of Faulk, his next goal will also be his 100th. He can thank the Hurricanes for 85 of those.
• With the division realignments last season, the Hurricanes and Blues have had quite a break from playing one another. The last time these teams met up was on February 4, 2020. That game was a 6-3 loss for the Hurricanes on the road. The other matchup that season. between the teams was cancelled due to the pandemic.
• Remember when Vladimir Tarasenko was a sure thing to get traded? Well, it remains to be seen what his relationship with the team is like right now, but he’s at least working hard on the ice: he has 12 points in 12 games.
• Blues forward Jordan Kyrou is emerging this season as a star. The 2016 second round pick spent his first full season in the NHL last year after two years of AHL/NHL action. He’s a nearly-point-per-game player in the AHL and is showing that he can bring the same scoring touch to the NHL. Kyrou leads the Blues in points with 14 in 12 games.

Lineups

Carolina Hurricanes

Andrei Svechnikov - Sebastian Aho - Seth Jarvis
Jesperi Kotkaniemi - Vincent Trocheck - Teuvo Teravainen
Steven Lorentz - Jordan Staal - Jepser Fast
Josh Leivo - Derek Stepan - Jordan Martinook

Jaccob Slavin - Ethan Bear
Brady Skjei - Tony DeAngelo
Brendan Smith - Ian Cole

Alex Lyon
Frederik Andersen

Game-time decisions: Nino Niederreiter (lower body), Martin Necas (illness)
Injuries: Brett Pesce (lower body), Antti Raanta (upper body)

St. Louis Blues

Jordan Kyrou - Ryan O’Reilly - Pavel Buchnevich
Ivan Barbashev - Robert Thomas - Vladimir Tarasenko
Brandon Saad - Tyler Bozak - David Perron
Klim Kostin - Dakota Joshua - James Neal

Marco Scandella - Colton Parayko
Calle Rosen - Justin Faulk
Jake Walman - Robert Bortuzzo

Jordan Binnington
Joel Hofer