The Carolina Hurricanes (46-21-6) traveled to Columbus and will do battle with the Blue Jackets (38-24-12) tonight at Nationwide Arena.
This is the first of two consecutive games between these teams in the next three days.
The Canes are coming off another loss to the Montreal Canadiens where they like felt they played well but could not solve goalie, Jakub Dobes. They face another goalie that has troubled them in the past, Jet Greaves.
Greaves is 24-14-9 with a GAA of 2.56 and a .910 save percentage.
The last time these teams faced each other on March 17, the Jackets skated away with a 5-1 victory. Greaves made 27 saves on 28 shots.
While Columbus currently has a three game losing streak, they have been red hot under new coach Rick Bowness and had a 20 plus game point streak at one time. They will be fighting for their playoff lives tonight.
Defenseman Zach Werenski leads the team with 77 points in 67 games.
The Canes are 6-4-0 in their last 10 games.
Fred Andersen played in the last game so according to previous protocol, Brandon Bussi should get the start tonight. Although the Canes have broken with their typical goalie rotation twice since the Olympic break, both times deferring to Andersen, who is Brind’Amour’s goalie of choice lately.
Bussi picked up a win against the Devils in his last outing and stopped 17 of 19 shots on goal.
The Carolina powerplay has been on fire lately. They have scored at least one powerplay goal in their last six games and they are 8-18 during that stretch.
There are no expected line up changes but check the comments for updates.
GAME NOTE:
Game time is 7:30 P.M. because this is a national game on ESPN+/HULU. The game will not stream on FuanDuel Sports.
As usual, you can listen to 99.9 The Fan for the team’s radio broadcast with Mike Maniscalco and Tripp Tracy.
