It’s one last game day on the road before the Carolina Hurricanes finally come home, and it’s yet another big one. The Canes face off tonight against the Dallas Stars—another team thought to be in contention for the Stanley Cup and showing just how serious they are by changing coaches in the offseason despite their playoff runs the last few seasons.
The thing that may be the most anticipated about tonight isn’t the return of Logan Stankoven to Dallas, and it isn’t really even how the team responds
to playing against their former short-term teammate Mikko Rantanen for the first time this year. It’s going to be that thanks to several injuries, the Hurricanes have called up star prospect Bradly Nadeau. Nadeau was a difficult cut out of camp, and in pervious seasons he would have been like Seth Jarvis and Jackson Blake—the young player who played well enough to earn a regular shot. Thanks to finally having some cap room, though, the Canes just were too deep to justify keeping Nadeau as a healthy scratch into the season. The decision was made to get him real playing experience in Chicago.
He’s taken advantage of it.
Now thanks to several injuries, Nadeau gets the callup. In fact the lineup tonight is almost going to look like a preseason game thanks to injuries to Jaccob Slavin, Pyotr Kochetkov, Shayne Gostisbehere, Ryan Miller, Eric Robinson, and Will Carrier. After morning skate, here’s how the lines look.
In his availability, Rod Brind’Amour implied that all of the newest injuries were on the longer term side of things, and with the hockey season being a marathon and not a sprint, there’s absolutely no reason to take any sort of chance on it. Also after tonight, we should have some clarity on all of them as the team will finally end up back in Raleigh and everyone will be able to touch base. Bussi being in goal tonight is not a surprise at all considering the amount of work Frederik Andersen had on Thursday night in the 5-4 shootout win.
On the other side they’ll a Stars team that is struggling as of late. They are 0-3-1 in their last four and about to head on a road trip themselves so they will likely be desperate to play well in front of the home crowd. That combined with all the inexperience for the Canes could create an interesting dynamic.
Here’s how the Stars lined up after the morning skate.
The earliest start time for the Canes in two weeks is also on tap thanks to being back in the Central Time Zone. Most fans should actually be able to stay up for this one. If you aren’t going to be in Dallas, here’s how to catch the action:
Time: 8 PM
TV: FanDuel Sports Network. Mike Maniscalco will handle play-by-play alongside Tripp Tracy doing color. Hanna Yates will provide off-ice reports as well as host pregame starting at 7:30 and postgame that will run for about 30 minutes after the conclusion.
Streaming: FanDuel Sports Network App for fans in the Carolinas. Outside of the area, the ESPN app has you covered as they have every out-of-market hockey game available to watch.
Radio: Adam Gold starts pregame on 99.9 The Fan at 7:30. At 8PM the Hurricanes Radio Nework (consisting of 99.9, 730 The Game in Charlotte, ESPN New Bern 107.5/1490, and ESPN Greenville 107.5/1570) picks up the FDSN feed. You can also stream the call on the Hurricanes app.
Odds: Hurricanes +102 Moneyline, Puckline Hurricanes +1.5 (-250)/Knights -22 Moneyline, Puckline -1.5 (+198), O/U 6.5 (+102/-124)
