Carolina Hurricanes: Breaking Down the 2019-20 Schedule

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RALEIGH, NC – MARCH 23: Minnesota Wild Center Eric Staal (12) and Carolina Hurricanes Left Wing Nino Niederreiter (21) battle for a loose puck during a game between the Minnesota Wild and the Carolina Hurricanes at the PNC Arena in Raleigh, NC on March 23, 2019. (Photo by Greg Thompson/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) /

November 2019

We start November at the end of a nice home stand. Back-to-back games on a Friday and Saturday night round off what we all hope will be a successful run of games. The Detroit Red Wings and New Jersey Devils the opposition.

It’s then a little back and forth. Road game followed by home game for the next four, before some semblance of normality is restored with a set of three very exciting road games if you’re a Carolina Hurricanes fan. These consecutive games are the pick of the month for November.

Pick of the Month – Buffalo Sabres, Minnesota Wild & Chicago Blackhawks – 14th, 16th & 19th

Maybe seen as a little surprising considering the Carolina Hurricanes are away to Tampa Bay Lightning on the last day of November. But in these selections you have three teams that weren’t able to beat Carolina at all this year. This season’s records against these three franchises was played seven, won seven.

With three road games in a row, we’ll see whether they’ll be able to have the same success. All three of these teams had rough years. They all failed to make the playoffs and in Chicago’s case, that’s not acceptable. Not when you have Patrick Kane on your team. Carolina will have already met Chicago once, so a 100% record could already be out the window by this point.

This is also another opportunity for Nino Niederreiter to return back to Minnesota. A trade that was about as one sided as they come. Niederreiter was stolen from Minnesota in exchange for Victor Rask, who hasn’t had the greatest time there so far. There’s still time for the former second round pick to make an impact in Minnesota, but he’s a way off replicating Niederreiter.

These three games are actually followed by two home games against teams that also failed to beat Carolina this season. The Philadelphia Flyers and Florida Panthers were good opposition for Carolina this season. This makes it five straight games against teams that gifted Carolina 28 points this season.

November is chock full of games, 15 in total. As mentioned earlier, Carolina round out the month with a trip to Florida to play Tampa Bay Lightning. This is the first road game of the two toughest road games of the season. The next one, we’ll get to next month.

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