Hurricanes at Oilers
THE STORY: The Carolina Hurricanes can only hope a visit to Edmonton will help the team rediscover its spark. The slumping Hurricanes face the Oilers on Wednesday in a rematch of the 2006 Stanley Cup final. Carolina won the NHL championship that year, and has had a pair of seven-goal outbursts against Edmonton in the past three years. But both of those games were in the friendly confines of Raleigh - and the road has been less than hospitable to the Hurricanes in 2011-12. The club has won only three times in 13 games outside of Carolina, and is coming off a wild 7-6 loss to the Flames in Calgary on Tuesday that extended its losing skid to a season-worst seven games. The Oilers are also coming off a defeat at the hands of the Flames, and have dropped four of their last five games overall.
TV: 9:30 p.m. ET, TSN, FS Carolina
ABOUT THE HURRICANES (8-17-4): Carolina netminder Mike Murphy made history in his NHL debut against Calgary. Murphy relieved Cam Ward after the Flames' sixth goal, and stopped both shots he faced along the way - but still ended up with the loss. Calgary's empty-netter wound up being the game winner after Carolina scored twice in the final minute. Those late goals made Murphy the goalie of record, making him the first player in league history to lose a game in which he did not give up a goal.
ABOUT THE OILERS (13-11-3): That opening month of the season must feel like a lifetime ago to aging netminder Nikolai Khabibulin. The 37-year-old has come crashing back to reality following a red-hot October, going 2-6-1 in his last nine outings. He surrendered four goals on 31 shots in the loss to the Flames, his worst performance since getting beaten five times in a 6-3 Chicago Blackhawks victory Nov. 13.
OVERTIME:
1. The home side has won four of five meetings between the teams since their 2006 Stanley Cup encounter.
2. Two-time 40-goal scorer Eric Staal struck twice in the loss to the Flames, equaling his output from the previous 22 games.