The Carolina Hurricanes play their penultimate game of the regular season in the Windy City on Sunday night.
The Carolina Hurricanes have two games remaining in the regular season, and their hopes at a Metropolitan Division championship and Presidents’ Trophy win are still alive.
The New York Rangers took care of business against the Islanders on Sunday, which means the Canes don’t control their own destiny and would need the Rangers to not get two points against the Senators in their last game.
For any of that to matter though, the Hurricanes will need to add two more to their four-game winning streak tonight against the Blackhawks in Chicago and in Columbus on Tuesday.
Both of those teams have long been eliminated, but the Blackhawks have been led by the stunning play of rookie Connor Bedard.
Bedard leads the team in all three major offensive categories, and his march toward the Calder Trophy looks inevitable at this point.
The Hurricanes iced a bit of a different lineup on Friday night in St. Louis, with rookie Scott Morrow making his debut and Tony DeAngelo drawing in for Brett Pesce and Jalen Chatfield.
Head coach Rod Brind’Amour told team reporter Walt Ruff that he was not 100% sure what the lineup would look like, which makes sense as the team might be taking the opportunity to sneak some rest in before the first round while getting the team’s freshly signed crop of rookies a potential look at game action.
If the team stays true to its recent rotation in goal, Pyotr Kochetkov would have the net after Andersen picked up the win on Friday.
The puck drops at 6:00 PM Eastern, and you can watch the game on Bally Sports South.