Hurricanes Take On Sens in Sunday Afternoon Matchup

Right now the Hurricanes sit in last place with a mountain of injuries, but seem to still playing hard. The Hurricanes are coming off a 2-1 hard fought victory over the Colorado Avalanche. Today they take on an Avalanche team that has lost their top two forwards to injury in Jason Spezza and Daniel Alfredsson. The Hurricanes and Sens come in with almost identical records in their last ten with the Hurricanes going 4-5-1 and the Sens are 4-6-0.

The Senators are a different team this year with the additions of Milan Michalek and Jonathan Cheechoo and the departure of Dany Heatley. Right now the Sens are dealing with the same injury delima as Spezza, Alfredsson, and Michalek are all out with injuries. “It was our first line not too long ago,” coach Cory Clouston said in pondering life without Michalek, Alfredsson and Spezza. “We need other guys to step up. We need to simplify our game even more and just keep working hard and being positive. “We’ve got a foundation laid that, if we stick with our systems and capitalize on our chances, we’ll be okay. But we’ve taken almost a hundred goals out of our lineup. But that’s still no excuse. We’ve still got to make the most of what we’ve got.” The Sens are beginning a five game road trip and would like nothing more to get a road win against the Hurricanes.

The Hurricanes will see the return of Staal off of a leave of absence. This can only help the Hurricanes who have now lost Ruutu to an upper body injury. Do to Stall coming back their will be no need for another recall from Albany. The Hurricanes need to play a sound defensive game like they did on Friday night to come out with a win today. “We played hard, they came out banging us and our penalty killing did a great job,” said Whitney, who scored his team-leading 12th and 13th goals. “Again, Cam played great in the first period and from there we got our legs going a little bit better. Under the circumstances we played good.” The other good news is that Corvo, LaRose, and Samsonov have begun skating again. With the season already lost its time to rest injuries and let some of the River Rats get a chance for next year.

News & Notes: Hurricanes are now 16 points out of a playoff spot.
Carrie Underwood’s Fiance, Mike Fisher, plays for the Sens.
Sens are beginning 5 game road trip.

Injuries: OTT Michalek
OTT Spezza (Torn MCL)
OTT Alfredsson (Seperated Left Shoulder)
OTT Winchester
OTT Kuba
CAR LaRose (Lower Body)
CAR Corvo (Leg Laceration)
CAR Walker (Shoulder)
CAR Ruutu (Upper Body)
CAR Cole (Upper Body)
CAR Samsonov (Upper Body)

Prediction: OTT 2 CAR 3 F/OT