Avalanche at Hurricanes
The Carolina Hurricanes are 4-2-1, a fantastic record only because their special teams are - well - not very special. Carolina is 2-for-25 on the power play - 1-for-17 over their last four games - and 14-for-22 in penalty killing, numbers that must improve to better its chances of defeating the visiting Colorado Avalanche on Saturday afternoon.
“Sometimes when things aren’t going your way there’s a tendency to overthink things,” Hurricanes defenseman Justin Faulk, the quarterback of the power play, told reporters. “When the numbers aren’t there and the results, it can be hard to stay with the process. The power play needs to be a focal point for our team. We have the players for it and need to stay with it. When you’re snakebit and try to force things it usually makes it worse. We need to dig in a little more.” Carolina completed a 1-2-0 trip with a 4-2 loss at Tampa Bay on Tuesday as Sebastian Aho recorded an assist to increase his team-leading point total to 12. Colorado improved to 1-0-1 on its four-game trek to the Eastern Seaboard with a 5-3 victory over New Jersey on Thursday on the strength of captain Gabriel Landeskog's third career hat trick. "I loved his game tonight,'' Avalanche coach Jared Bednar told reporters after the game. "Right from the get-go. I think he had our team focused and ready to go, and I thought we were the aggressors to start the game.''
TV: 1 p.m. ET, Altitude (Colorado), FS Southeast (Carolina)
ABOUT THE AVALANCHE (4-1-2): Colorado's No. 1 line of Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen and Landeskog has combined for 14 goals and 18 assists with Rantanen boasting a club-high 13 points, recording at least one assist in each game, and MacKinnon a team-most seven goals. "He's got the confidence to go along with it now, and he is making plays consistently," Landeskog told reporters about Rantanen, who had career bests of 29 goals and 84 points last season. "He is so strong and big to knock off the puck, so he is making plays and he is doing it really well." Semyon Varlamov (3-0-2, 1.77 goals-against average, .948 save percentage) is expected to play after Philipp Grubauer won his first game in an Avalanche sweater when he made 27 saves Thursday.
ABOUT THE HURRICANES (4-2-1): Aho, who has recorded at least one point in every game this season, has one of the power-play goals with the other - by Teuvo Teravainen - going into an empty net. “It’s kind of cliche but we need to keep shooting, throw pucks to the net, outnumber them in front of the net and get those seconds and thirds (rebounds),” Aho told reporters. Teravainen, Justin Williams and Micheal Ferland each have seven points with Ferland riding a two-game goal scoring streak.
OVERTIME
1. Landeskog leads Colorado with a plus-9 rating followed by Rantanen and D Erik Johnson (five assists), who are plus-7.
2. Carolina LW Brock McGinn (seven shots) is the only Hurricanes regular with a minus rating (minus-3).
3. The clubs split a pair of meetings last season with each winning at home as MacKinnon, Rantanen and Landeskog combining for two goals and three assists.