Canes Roster Moves, Terminate Nakladal Contract and Sharks Come To Raleigh (Terravainen)

Terravainen

Canes Roster Moves, Terminate Nakladal Contract and Sharks Come To Raleigh

By Ben Case

Nov 15, 2016 • 5:14 pm

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Tonight, the Carolina Hurricanes (4-6-4) are taking on the San Jose Sharks (9-6-0) at the PNC Arena. They will be looking to build off of a strong 5-1 win over the Capitals on Saturday. However, before we dive into the pregame against the Sharks tonight, there are a lot of roster changes to mention since my post last Thursday.

The most sad and shocking of them all was of course the news relating to Bryan Bickell and his diagnosis with Multiple Sclerosis (MS).

Roster Moves: The Canes made a few other roster moves—they called Matt Tennyson up and sent Jakub Nakladal down before Saturday’s game against the Capitals. Nakladal ultimately decided not to report to Charlotte and the Canes announced that they have terminated his contract. It is speculated that Nakladal will look to play in Europe somewhere now. I don’t think this is too much of a loss for the Hurricanes, as they have many younger guys that are just as capable.

Coach Peters praised Tennyson for improving since training camp and it appears that he will be playing again tonight.

The Canes also called up a pair of forwards before Saturday’s game—Derek Ryan and Brock McGinn both got the call and saw action on the Canes 3rd line. They are projected to play on the third line with Lee Stempniak tonight against the Sharks. Since the Canes called up two forwards, they elected to send Phillip Di Guiseppi down to Charlotte—he played in 11 games this season and was a minus -6. He really struggled against more physical teams and failed to contribute much on the offensive side.

Finally, the last roster announcement is the news that D-man Justin Faulk will be returning tonight against the Sharks. This will be huge for the Canes as he is not just a great D-man, but an offensive threat and on the First PP unit.

Quick Re-cap from Saturday: While I didn’t see the Canes-Capitals game on Saturday, the highlights looked like they dominated overall. They significantly outshot the Capitals at 38-21. Also, as noted above, the Canes also switched up their lines—the most notable switch was the second line which was on fire the entire game. Coach Peters assembled Tuevo Terravainen and Sebastian Aho centered by Jordan Staal. I speculated in the comments of my first Canes blog that I thought this pairing could be lethal—it did not disappoint as they combined for 11 points. The best part of that line finding success was that Aho finally found the back of the net and turned in a 3-point night with 2 goals and an assist. Recently, he had some amazing chances in previous games and wasn’t able to convert, so hopefully now he can find a grove.

Tonight’s Pregame: The Canes are taking on a very good Sharks team that has started strong. This is their 4th road game on a 6-game road trip—they are currently 3-0-0 as they have taken down Washington, Tampa Bay and Florida already. In those three games, they have outscored their opponents 10-3 and have seen some very sound goaltending and defensive play. The Sharks are one of the league’s best teams at blocking shots averaging over 16 a night.

The Sharks are electing to start their back-up, Aaron Dell against the Canes tonight. The Canes have recently been getting favorable match-ups against the opponent’s back-ups, this will be the third time in four games. Dell’s has on relief appearance and only one start this season against the Islanders on October 18th—the Canes need to put everything they can on net early, especially given how well the Sharks block shots.

Cam Ward will be starting again for the Canes, however, this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. He has been playing much better since his early starts. In fact, in November he is currently 2-1-2 with a 1.93 GAA and posting a .932 save percentage. His numbers are partly from him playing significantly better, but also from the D-Zone coverage improving and getting more support.

Tonight, one of the keys for the Canes again will be creating turnovers and puck possession. Looking at giveaways, the Sharks are the 2nd worst team in this statistic averaging close to 13 turnovers per game. On the flip-side, the Canes are the third best team in the league at creating takeaways and force almost 10 turnovers a game. The Canes will need to keep this trend up tonight and get additional possessions to make up for the Sharks ability to block shots.

Looking at special teams, both teams have almost identical numbers. They both are tied for 12th on the PP converting on 19.6% of their opportunities this season. On the PK, the Canes are 2nd in the league killing off 90.2% while the Sharks are 3rd killing off 89.2%. In addition, both teams are some of the leagues most disciplined teams, so I imagine that we will see a lot of 5v5 play.

The Canes projected lines tonight are:

Skinner—Rask—Lindholm Terravainen—Staal—Aho Stempniak—Ryan—McGinn Nordstrom—McClement—Stalberg

Faulk—Hainsey Slavin—Pesce Hanifin—Tennyson

Ward (Confirmed)

Canes Extra:

Happy Birthday to Brett Pesce today:

The Canes are running a BOGO for their game on November 20th. Details are below:

The Canes recently announced that they were going to be running the #HurricanesHomegrown series which would highlight local businesses—the first one will be this Friday against the Canadiens:

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