Gold: Canes taking on Devils for the first time this year
Posted January 22, 2022 2:14 p.m. EST
It’s a weekend of firsts for the Carolina Hurricanes.
Friday night was their first meeting with the Metropolitan Division rival New York Rangers and tonight, less than 24 hours after polishing off the Blue Shirts, 6-3, the Canes will visit the New Jersey Devils. It was against New Jersey that Carolina officially ended their postseason drought in April of 2019. And, it was the Devils that became the Hurricanes’ first real playoff rival.
New Jersey knocked out Carolina – literally – in a 1st round series in 2001. That was the year Scott Stevens began Ron Francis’ off-season a few games early with that devastating-yet-clean hit at the edge of the Devils’ bench. The following season saw Carolina return the favor, minus the knockout punch, beating the Devils in six games en route to the Stanley Cup Finals. That 4-2 series win featured likely the greatest save in franchise history.
Thank you, Kevin Weekes.
In all the Canes and Devils have met four times in the playoffs with the Canes winning the last 3 including a late, game 7 rally against Martin Brodeur. Jussi Jokinen and Eric Staal scored a little more than a minute apart to turn a 3-2 deficit into a 4-3 win. There is history with these two teams.
However, these are not your uncle’s New Jersey Devils. It’s been four years since they’ve been in the postseason and ten since they won a series. Their points percentage the last three seasons is .447 and this year, in spite of some high-profile additions like Dougie Hamilton, it’s not really improved. At 14-19-5, the Devils are 7th in the Metro and staring at a 4th straight long off-season.
That doesn’t mean they’re without talent. Though Hamilton is out with a broken jaw the result of taking a puck to the face a few weeks ago, there are still a lot of highly-skilled young players that should form the corps of very good New Jersey teams to come. 23 year old Jesper Bratt leads them in scoring with 10 goals and 33 points. 2017 first overall draft pick Nico Hischier is next with 23 points (8g, 15a). Another number 1 overall selection, Jack Hughes, has 21 points and fellow first rounder Dawson Mercer has 20. Both of those kids are just 20.
This is a team with speed, talent and nothing to lose. They are not to be taken lightly.
Infirmary report...
In about a 10 minute span of the second period against the Rangers the Canes saw Teuvo Teravainen, Vincent Trocheck and Andrei Svechnikov all leave the ice injured. The first two went to the locker room and both returned to the game. Teuvo was hurt in a lower body collision with Barclay Goodrow and needed to be helped to the room. He returned about 8 minutes later to help create Carolina’s 4th goal of the night before taking the rest of the game off.
Trocheck appeared to have no issues after taking a puck off the inside of his leg while blocking a shot. Svechnikov seemed to have taken a shot to the hand and was doubled over in pain on the bench. But, he didn’t miss any time and set up the 5th goal with a great feed from behind the goal to Nino Niederreiter.
This is the long way of saying that all three made the trip north this morning, a flight delayed due to weather issues last night at RDU, and they’ll all be game time decisions. Remember that both Martin Necas and Jordan Martinook are on the Covid list so Carolina has already had to dip into their depth. Josh Leivo drew into the line up against the Rangers and Stefan Noesen is on the taxi squad, so if one of the forwards can’t answer the bell Carolina should be covered.
Antti Raanta is the likely starter in goal in the second half of this back to back.
Do not touch without asbestos gloves...
Sebastian Aho has 22 points in his last 13 games (7g, 15a) and a +11 rating. His goal and 2 assists gave him his 3rd 3-point night in that stretch and his 14th multi-point game of the season.
Tony DeAngelo has 3 points in each of his last two games (1g, 5a). He has 31 points in 30 games played and has only had eight games all year in which he was kept off the scoresheet.
Andrei Svechnikov has 4 goals and 11 points in his last 8 games.
Wanna bet...
Carolina -175. O/U: 6 goals.
Coverage begins at 6:30 on 99.9 the Fan with Storm Watch starring Alec Campbell. Mike Maniscalco and Tripp Tracy are next with the live action at 7:00. Don’t forget to follow the Canes Corner Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. A new episode drops the #MorningAfter every Hurricanes game.
