Did you have a good week off? After the grind of the hockey season and then the routine of basically every night with the playoffs, the sweep of the Ottawa Senators last Saturday afternoon has has the Carolina Hurricanes out of action since. For fans, it’s been a week of figuring out how to pass time, scouting other teams, maybe even spending some times with loved ones—remember them?
One of the ways that the time was filled was figuring out when the Canes would actually play next. As other series
dragged on, it seemed like it would be after the weekend was done before the series would start, because surely the NHL wouldn’t start one series before the others were done right? Especially since the other Eastern Conference Series won’t start till Tuesday at the earliest.
Yeah, apparently the folks at Disney and Rogers Sportsnet in Canada wanted hockey on Saturday no matter what round it was.
So here we are, after being in a “hurry up and wait” mode, fans woke up Friday to news that Game One will be tonight. Fortunately the Flyers were told that Saturday was a possibility after closing out their series against Pittsburgh and had their plane ready to go to get into Raleigh last night. Just like that, we are back in playoff mode.
If you need an overall series preview, there are more than a few out there. Canes Country’s own Kyle Morton has this one for Daily Faceoff, and honestly is where you should start. Cory Lavalette has this one for the North State Journal and comes from the point of view of someone with the team on a day to day basis. NHL.com has one from a bit of a neutral point of view.
The thought going into the series is that despite each game going to Overtime this season, the Hurricanes are going to be more of a favorite against Philadelphia than they were against Ottawa. The context of the games against Philly needs to be taken into account—none of them were played with the full Hurricane lineup or health. The first matchup was the second game of the season when Jaccob Slavin left early and didn’t return for weeks. The second matchup had Joel Nystrom skating instead of Slavin, the third did have the full lineup but it was literally right after the second and Slavin was still figuring out how to play coming back from injury. The fourth? That was the shootout loss with about half the team on the bench and the Canes just needing a point to wrap up the top seed in the East.
Thus, now Philadelphia will be playing Carolina at their healthiest for the first time all season. They also haven’t had nearly the same opportunity to study Carolina’s first round matchup, while Carolina has been able to study the Flyers. Still, Philly may have the advantage to start as they are still in the rhythm of the playoffs while the Canes will have to warm themselves back up. There’s little doubt that by the numbers and rosters, Philly will be at a big disadvantage. Still, all it takes is one win on the road to flip home ice.
Philly doesn’t look to make many changes from what they finished up their series with. We’ll see what, if any tweaks they make this morning at the skate, but here’s what it looked like before they flew to Raleigh:
O’Connor noted later that Tippett was just taking a maintenance day.
As for the Canes, they do appear to be at full health thanks to the on-ice practice Friday.
Brind’Amour would confirm later that it was just a regular off day for Carrier and Andersen. With the fact that Bussi hasn’t been in a game yet and Kochetkov is still coming back from surgery, the thought likely was it would be good for both to get a full practice and then Andersen will get the benefit of the morning skate on Saturday.
It was good to see Nikishin out on the ice in a regular color sweater, as there was no one who benefited from the week off it was him. The hit on him looked scary, and even though reports had it to where he was looking better by the time handshakes happened, it was clear that he needed the time to go through the full protocol. We’ll see if he’s still on the ice for morning skate today, but things are pointing the right way.
It’s not surprising it took until Friday’s practice before Ehlers also made an appearance. He played all 82 games—one of the only Canes regulars to do so—and played in the Olympics with Andersen, and plays on a punshing checking line with Jordan Staal and Jordan Martinook. The rest likely did him a world of good.
The second round of the playoffs means all games are national calls only. We’ll get an idea of the rest of the TV coverage when the rest of the schedule is out, but now is your reminder that you’re going to want to make sure you have access to ESPN, ABC (All on ESPN Unlimited) as well as TNT and TBS (available on HBO Max). There are a ton of options in order to obtain these—cable packages, their individual apps, an HD antenna that will get you your local ABC affiliate—but however you plan to get access, now’s the time to plan because FanDuel Sports Net is no more. Of course, you can still hear Mike and Tripp on the radio—and for some folks that may be the preference—but from here on out we get national play callers.
So, if you aren’t going to be in Lenovo for Saturday Night in Raleighwood, here’s how you can catch the action:
Time: 8 PM
TV: ABC has the game in the US with Mike Monaco providing play-by-play, Ray Ferraro between the benches, and Emily Kaplan will handle off-ice interviews and reports. In Canada the game will be on SportsNet and TVA Sports.
Streaming Video: ESPN App (Unlimited) will stream the game, and as the game is on ABC if you have access to ESPN via cable you should be able to watch on the app without an extra subscription. However just having a Disney/Hulu subscription won’t be enough if you can’t access ESPN regularly. You’ll either need to add ESPN, or grab an HD antenna. There are also free or discounted trials with various streaming bundles that would give you access for tonight.
Radio: This is where you can listen to Mike Maniscalco and Tripp Tracy call the action for the rest of the playoffs. The pregame on 99.9 The Fan starts at 7PM and runs for 60 minutes in the playoffs. At 8PM the Hurricanes Radio Network (consisting of 99.9, 730 The Game in Charlotte, ESPN New Bern 107.5/1490, and ESPN Greenville 107.5/1570). You will also be able stream this call through 99.9 on your smart device, app, or the Carolina Hurricanes app—and it’s not geolocked.
Odds (per Fanduel on Friday Night): Hurricanes -210 Moneyline, Puckline Hurricanes -1.5 at +118/Flyers +172 Moneyline, Puckline +1.5 at -148, O/U 5.5 (-122 Over/+100 Under)
