Gold: Canes GameDay preview: Back to Nashville
Posted October 16, 2021 4:05 p.m. EDT
I can guarantee this much, we will not have double overtime tonight in Nashville.
The Carolina Hurricanes take their 1-0-0 record on the road to Nashville to take on the Predators. The Canes opened the season Thursday night at PNC Arena with a 6-3 win over the Islanders while the Preds fell at home the same night to the Seattle Kraken.
The last three games of consequence Carolina played in Nashville have needed overtime. Dating back to Games 3 and 4 of their opening round series with the Predators, the Canes fell in double overtime twice before eliminating Nashville in Game 6 when Sebastian Aho deflected a Jaccob Slavin shot past Juuse Saros 5 ½ minutes into the first extra period.
Speaking of Aho, his 10 goals in 16 career games against Nashville are tied for the most against any team he’s faced. He also has 10 markers against Columbus, but he’s faced the Blue Jackets 23 times. Tack on the five goals Aho scored in last year’s postseason series and Carolina’s newest alternate captain has 15 goals and 23 points in 22 games against the Predators.
A number of Hurricanes were excellent in the series with the Preds. Jordan Staal scored 4 goals, including the Game 5 winner in overtime, in a 5-point series. Martin Necas also registered 5-points, including both regulation goals in that game. You might remember his wraparound tally with just more than 7 minutes to play that leveled the score at 2-2.
Frederik Andersen has a 9-2-0 record against the Predators with a .929 SV%. In a dozen appearances, Andersen has allowed just 13 even strength goals against Nashville.
Mikael Granlund led the Preds in scoring against Carolina in the playoffs. He had a pair of goals and 5 points. Ryan Johansen had three goals and an assist, Roman Josi had four helpers and the Preds got two goals each from depth forwards Nick Cousins, Yakov Trenin and Luke Kunin.
Juuse Saros was excellent in the playoffs a year ago, losing 4 times in spite of a .921 SV%. For his career against Carolina he’s 1-5-1 with a .918 SV%, but that was primarily in a back up role to Pekka Rinne.
Carolina picked up where they left off in the regular season, killing off all three Islanders power plays Thursday night. A year ago, the Hurricanes erased 85.2% of enemy power plays, 3rd best in the entire league. On the power play last year, the Canes’ turned the light on 25.6% of the time, 2nd best in the league. Officially, they converted on 2 of their 5 chances against New York, though the second power play goal was into an empty net after the Islanders pulled Ilya Sorokin for an extra attacker.
The Hurricanes are expected to roll out the exact same line up as they did against the Isles on Thursday night.
Tune in at 7:30 for Storm Watch starring Alec Campbell on 99.9 the Fan. The play-by-play with Mike Maniscalco and Tripp Tracy follows at 8:00. And, don’t forget to stay on the lookout for the Canes Corner Podcast which drops the morning after every Hurricanes game. It’s available wherever you get your podcasts.
