After a couple days off, the Carolina Hurricanes (40-17-6) are back in action tonight to host the Pittsburgh Penguins (32-17-14) at 7 PM.<\/p>\n
Following Saturday\u2019s 5-4 loss to the Calgary Flames, the Canes have a chance to get back in the win column in a battle of the two top teams in the Metropolitan Division.<\/p>\n
Even though the Penguins are second in the Metro, they are eight points back of Carolina and have been going through a bit of a rough patch as of late. Pittsburgh is 4-3-3 in their last 10 and has lost four of seven since coming back from the Olympic break.<\/p>\n
One reason for that is they\u2019ve been without captain and leading scorer Sidney Crosby, who was placed on injured reserve following a lower-body injury suffered at the Olympics.<\/p>\n
Crosby has been dominant once again in his 21st season, having tallied 59 points in 56 games so far this season. He leads the Penguins in both goals, with 27, and points.<\/p>\n
In addition to most likely being without Crosby again tonight, Pittsburgh also won\u2019t have Evgeni Malkin, who is serving a five game suspension for slashing Sabres defenseman Rasmus Dahlin. Malkin, also playing well, is tied for Pittsburgh\u2019s second leading scorer with 47 points in 46 games.<\/p>\n
Without their two leading scorers, the Penguins will have to rely on the rest of the forward group to step up. That presumably starts with wingers Anthony Mantha and Bryan Rust, who have 47 and 46 points respectively this season. On the backend, Erik Karlsson is still getting it done, with a team-leading 36 assists on the year.<\/p>\n
The Penguins aren\u2019t an extremely talented team, especially without two of their best players, but they have found a way to get it done this season after missing the playoffs last year and finishing second-to-last in the Metro.<\/p>\n
Carolina is pretty much fully healthy as the regular season begins to near the finish line, but they will most likely be without defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere tonight, who is dealing with a lower-body injury.<\/p>\n
In net for Carolina tonight looks to be Frederik Andersen, who has posted a 3.16 GAA and .873 save percentage this season.<\/p>\n
The Penguins will most likely go with Stuart Skinner in goal, who has put up a 2.74 GAA and .890 save percentage on the year.<\/p>\n
Tonight is an excellent opportunity for Carolina to not only get back on track after a rough loss, but also to increase their division lead.<\/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 -205 Moneyline, Hurricanes -1.5 at +108<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a couple days off, the Carolina Hurricanes (40-17-6) are back in action tonight to host the Pittsburgh…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":496658,"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-496981","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\/116206484000529777","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496981","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=496981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496981\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}