The Carolina Hurricanes will look to bounce back from their double overtime loss to the Boston Bruins, with Game 2 of their first round series happening tonight (unless Columbus and Tampa Bay don't allow for it).
The Hurricanes had a pretty disappointing performance in their first game against Boston, coming off a series where they looked great against the New York Rangers. I’m really hoping the lines are changed even if Justin Williams isn’t back and ideally, we see something like this:
Again, these are not the projected lines, but simply the ones that I think would put the Hurricanes in the best position. The third line had a really hard time getting anything going last game and I don’t see how they can stay together for Game 2. Plus, not using Nino Niederreiter in the top-nine was a mistake, in my opinion.
On defense, we’ll have to see whether or not Sami Vatanen is back, but if he isn’t, the pairings will likely stay the same. As I said in the article, pretty much every defenseman needs to be better than they were in Game 1. Boston was getting way too many chances and players were getting left alone in key places.
In net, I’d feel comfortable with the Hurricanes going back to Petr Mrazek. He was good in Game 1 and certainly wasn’t the reason for the loss.
The whole team needs to give a better effort in Game 2 and I’m hopeful that the Hurricanes will be able to generate more chances tonight than they did yesterday.
Puck drop is at 8 p.m.
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Here’s today’s poll question (results and discussion will be posted in a future article):
Should Nino Niederreiter play with Vincent Trocheck and Martin Necas?
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