Carolina Hurricanes: Keys to Stealing More Points from Tampa Bay

The Carolina Hurricanes are finally back home at the PNC Arena tonight for Pride Night as they host the Discover Central Division and NHL leading Tampa Bay Lightning. The Canes are just three points behind the Bolts with a game in hand.

The Canes find themselves sitting squarely in the 2nd place position in the Discover Central Division after a (relatively) successful 4-game miniseries against the Columbus Blue Jackets.

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The Bolts, on the other hand, just had their 5-game winning streak snapped in dramatic fashion by the Dallas Stars this past Thursday night; needless to say, the Bolts will definitely be looking to get another streak going tonight in Raleigh.

The Tampa Bay Lightning are the ultimate test for the Carolina Hurricanes, both in the regular season and very likely further on down the line in the postseason.

If the Canes want to secure the 1st place spot in the Central Division, they’ll have to surpass the Tampa Bay Lightning. If the Canes want to advance out of the Divisional Round of the playoffs later on, they’ll (more than likely) have to surpass the Tampa Bay Lightning in a best-of-7 series.

Games like tonight are a perfect litmus test for both teams and are sure to be a sign of things to come when the teams continue to clash in the coming weeks and months.

3. Can Reimer Remain Steady?

James Reimer is getting the call to the starter’s crease tonight after Alex Nedeljkovic played in and won two consecutive games.

This is exactly the way Reimer should be utilized going forward: as a backup, at least until Petr Mrazek returns.

Reimer has not been bad by any stretch of the word. He does give up the occasional bad rebound, and his puck-tracking has been subpar for a majority of this season, but he has been serviceable in Mrazek’s wake.

On the flip side, though, the Carolina Hurricanes have not won a game with Reimer in net without scoring more than 3 goals.

This is definitely a concerning trend, but the strange thing is that Reimer definitely had a hand in keeping the Canes competitive in those games, despite also having a largely equal hand in giving up the goals that led to the Carolina Hurricanes’ goalscorers being in a tight spot in the first place.

Needless to say, Reimer, alongside the Canes’ offensive corps, will need to be at their best tonight to beat not only the best team in the Discover Central Division, but the best team in the NHL.

2. Line Shakeups Recipe for Success?

This one is a bit of a mystery to me.

After rolling with a virtually identical lineup for 4+ games in a row, Rod Brind’amour chooses to shake up the lines (in dramatic fashion) right before playing the Division-and-League-leading Tampa Bay Lightning.

I get the value of shaking up lines, and slotting players in at different places and with different linemates to get them going again, but after Warren Foegele cost the Canes points in two of the last four games, he gets rewarded with 2nd line minutes?

As Canes’ Twitter resident voice of reason Katie (@FleurySkjei, give her a follow, you won’t regret it) suggested, maybe Foegele is being anchored to Jordan Staal as an insurance policy, which is definitely the best explanation I’ve heard about it so far.

Bumping Andrei Svechnikov down to the 3rd line with Jordan Martinook and Jesper Fast when Svech is in the middle of the mother of all slumps and really needs better offensive players around him to really get going again?

I can’t say I understand it by any means. If it works, I’ll gladly eat crow; it won’t be the first time Rod Brind’amour has made me do that. If not, though, there have to be questions about why he chose these combinations and why he chose now to deploy them as such.

Location: PNC Arena
Puck Drop: 7:00PM EST
TV: Fox Sports Carolinas
Radio: 99.9 The Fan
Uniforms: Black Alts
Projected Lineup:

• McGinn – Aho – Necas
• Niederreiter – Staal – Foegele
• Svechnikov – Martinook – Fast
• Paquette – Geekie – Lorentz
• Slavin – Hamilton
• Skjei – Pesce
• Fleury – Bean

Projected Goalie Matchup:

Carolina: James Reimer, 12-4-1, .909 SV%, 2.68 GAA
Tampa Bay: Andrei Vasilevskiy, 21-4-1, .932 SV%, 1.91 GAA, 3 SO

Score Prediction:

Moneypuck.com gives the Carolina Hurricanes a 51.6% chance of winning tonight’s matchup.