Hurricanes at Sharks
The Carolina Hurricanes look to conclude their four-game road trip with back-to-back wins when they visit the San Jose Sharks on Saturday. After going 0-1-1 midway through its trek, Carolina emerged with a 2-1 shootout victory at Arizona on Thursday as Elias Lindholm scored the lone goal in the first round of the bonus format. The triumph gave the Hurricanes points in six of their last seven overall games (4-1-2) and five of six on the road (3-1-2).
San Jose returns to the Bay Area for a three-game homestand after salvaging a split of its brief two-game road trip with a 5-1 victory at Vancouver on Thursday. Rookie Chris Tierney scored his first career goal and added an assist for his initial two-point performance in the NHL as the Sharks improved to 6-2-2 in their last 10 contests. San Jose posted a 2-0 road victory in the first meeting of the season on Nov. 16 as Tomas Hertl and Joe Thornton tallied while Troy Grosenick posted a 45-save shutout in his NHL debut.
TV: 10:30 p.m. ET, FSN Carolinas, CSN California (San Jose)
ABOUT THE HURRICANES (18-26-7): Carolina likely will be without Ryan Murphy on Saturday as the defenseman suffered a knee injury in the victory at Arizona. The 21-year-old was high-sticked in the face by Lauri Korpikoski midway through the first period and appeared to twist his left knee while falling to the ice. John-Michael Liles saw his workload increase as a result of the injury, logging a season-high 25:50 of ice time.
ABOUT THE SHARKS (28-18-7): San Jose received a glimpse of its future Thursday and had to have been pleased. Besides Tierney's performance, Daniil Tarasov notched an assist in his NHL debut, Melker Karlsson scored his ninth goal and fellow rookie Matt Tennyson set up a tally. "A lot of times, the veterans pull the young kid along," coach Todd McLellan said after the game. "Tonight, it was the young players pulling the veterans along."
OVERTIME
1. Sharks C Joe Pavelski leads the league with 15 power-play goals, one more than Washington's Alex Ovechkin.
2. Carolina captain Eric Staal leads the team with 16 goals but has gone four games without a tally.
3. Thornton failed to record a point Thursday, keeping him one behind Peter Stastny (1,239) for a share of 36th place on the all-time list.