It’s been 10 days since the Carolina Hurricanes’ last game, and this is going to be a tough one. There will be 5 roster players missing tonight, and even with them, this game would have been a tough task. Teuvo Teravainen, Jaccob Slavin, Jesper Fast, Jordan Martinook, and Warren Foegele will be absent. They are all still in Nashville after being put on the COVID-19 list. It’s going to be a tough time for the Canes.
That being said, there will be debutants. As this is being written, there have been no official call ups from the Taxi squad, but I’m going to be somewhat bold and assume Rod Brind’Amour doesn’t plan on using 13 players. Steven Lorentz should make his NHL debut. Max McCormick should make his Canes debut, and we should see even more of Morgan Geekie.
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However, the Tampa Bay Lightning will not roll over and let the Carolina Hurricanes have their feel-good story. Tampa Bay have started well. They currently sit in the 4th place in the Discover Central division, in the final playoff place and are looking strong with their abundance of weapons across the board. With 4 different players being a point per game or above, it’s going to be a daunting task to keep them out.
Led by their captain Steven Stamkos, this scoring machine has done what they have done for years: come up against a good team, chewed them up and left the remains behind. With everyone except the Columbus Blue Jackets, that seems to be a theme. How can the Canes win this game? Well, they could trade rosters with the Blue Jackets for this game. That seems to work.
Genuinely though, this is going to be a really difficult game. However, we will see Jordan Staal back in the lineup after he was removed from the NHL’s COVID-19 protocol list. Adding him back with everyone who’s out is a BIG addition. He is going to have to lead by example if the Canes are going to take two points away from this game at PNC Arena tonight.