Hurricanes-Jets: Preview, TV, Radio

Time: 8 p.m.

TV: Fox Sports Carolinas, TSN3

Radio: 99.9 FM The Fan

The Carolina Hurricanes have had a bit of a rough start to the 2014-15 season. The team has dropped all four games on the schedule so far, but has looked good in their past two shootout losses to the Buffalo Sabres and New York Rangers.

With some days off since their last game, Carolina looks to get healthy during this four-game trek north of the border, first making a stop in Winnipeg to take on the Jets.

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Cardiac Cane

Last time out…

The ‘Canes (0-2-2) have lost all four of their games in the early season so far, most recently on Thursday night in a 2-1 shootout loss to the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden.

The Jets (1-4-0) have dropped four straight since winning their season opener, most recently falling to the Calgary Flames 4-1 at home on Sunday night.

Preview

The good news for Carolina is that Jeff Skinner will be ready to play tonight, marking his first regular season appearance since suffering a concussion in the final game of the preseason. He’s been making strides in practice, and projected lines have him in the second shift along with Victor Rask and Elias Lindholm.

With all of these forwards returning sooner rather than later, the Hurricanes should have more balance on offense and could create more opportunities with a player like Skinner back. The young guns like Nash and Chris Terry have really been stepping up, while the veteran Semin has looked sluggish in the early parts of the season. If Skinner can mesh well with the young talent and get scoring chances early, Carolina could take this one decisively.

Carolina’s power play has also calmed down somewhat, and Winnipeg has one of the best PK units in the league thus far (95.2% kill rate, seriously).

On defense, Andrej Sekera is also being rumored to make his return as soon as tonight following his crash into the boards in the Buffalo loss. If not tonight, then he should be back sometime this week. Same status for John-Michael Liles, who skated in a yellow no-contact jersey during Monday’s practice.

The Jets have struggled on offense so far, but are also without arguably the their best player in Evander Kane, who’s still out with a knee injury. Carolina needs to pressure early and often, which shouldn’t be much of an issue given Winnipeg’s offensive struggles. The PK until should also have an easy time on paper, as the Jets are 0-14 with the man advantage in their first five games.

Speaking of the New York loss, Anton Khudobin’s 33-save performance in net should earn him another start tonight in Winnipeg. Not that Cam Ward has necessarily been bad in net (Did you see that shootout against Buffalo?), but Khudobin has just been comparatively better. If he can keep it up, he could be looking at more ice time depending on if Ward shows the same type of performances or not.

Carolina probable lines

Tlusty-Nash-Semin
Skinner-Rask-Lindholm
Terry-McClement-Boychuk
Malone-Brown-Murphy

Sekera-Faulk
Harrison-Gleason
Hainsey-Bellemore

Injuries

Jordan Staal (IR broken fibula)

Patrick Dwyer (IR lower body)

John-Michael Liles (DTD upper body)

Eric Staal (DTD upper body)

Nathan Gerbe (DTD lower body)