Hurricanes hockey is back. After a three week Olympic hiatus, the Carolina Hurricanes (36-15-6) host the Tampa Bay Lightning (38-14-4) tonight at 7 pm.<\/p>\n
Carolina had three players bring home medals: Jaccob Slavin won gold with the United States, Seth Jarvis won silver with Canada, and Sebastian Aho won bronze with Finland. All three will suit up tonight head coach Rod Brind\u2019Amour said, reported by Walt Ruff.<\/p>\n
Getting back to regular season NHL hockey, it\u2019s a battle of the top two teams in the Eastern Conference tonight, as both the Canes and Lightning lead their respective divisions.<\/p>\n
It won\u2019t be an easy first game back to say the least for the Canes. Before the break, Tampa Bay was the hottest team in the league, winning their last five and 19 of their last 21 games. They picked up right where they left off last night, with a 4-2 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs.<\/p>\n
The last time these two teams played was on Dec. 20, where the Lightning won 6-4. That game snapped a three-game losing streak for Tampa Bay and jump started the run that they have been on.<\/p>\n
The Lightning currently have the second best odds to win the Stanley Cup according to FanDuel, followed by the Canes at third.<\/p>\n
While injuries have hurt both teams this season, the lineups are healthy for the most part heading into the matchup.<\/p>\n
Tampa Bay is led by winger Nikita Kucherov, whose 94 points in 52 games is good for second in the NHL. Kucherov is also tied for the most assists in the league this year with 64.<\/p>\n
Joining him on the Lightning\u2019s forward group is former Cane Jake Guentzel, who has tallied 26 goals and 34 assists in 56 games.<\/p>\n
On the backend, Tampa Bay has Darren Raddysh, who has the sixth most points amongst defenseman this season with 52. Star defenseman Victor Hedman, who has only played 22 games this year due to injury, is back in the lineup.<\/p>\n
Brandon Bussi will get the nod in net for the Canes tonight. He has posted a 23-3-1 record to go along with a 2.16 GAA and .906 save percentage this year.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a tough matchup right out of the break, but these are the types of games the Canes need to win down the stretch to prove they have what it takes come playoff time. So look out for a potentially close one tonight.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s how to catch the action:<\/p>\n
TV: FanDuel Sports Network<\/p>\n
Streaming: FanDuel Sports Network App\/ESPN+<\/p>\n
Odds: Hurricanes -150 Moneyline, Hurricanes -1.5 at +156<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hurricanes hockey is back. After a three week Olympic hiatus, the Carolina Hurricanes (36-15-6) host the Tampa Bay…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473433,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5107],"tags":[194,29,34417,5176,5,195,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-473432","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-carolina-hurricanes","8":"tag-carolina","9":"tag-carolina-hurricanes","10":"tag-carolina-hurricanes-game-day-previews","11":"tag-carolinahurricanes","12":"tag-hockey","13":"tag-hurricanes","14":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116138276600006527","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=473432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}