The Habs face the Carolina Hurricanes tonight, on the road, against a team with the worst record in the NHL. Despite a brutal away record, Carolina is a respectable 8-8-2 at home, meaning this match will be no easy task for the Canadiens.
Carolina has had a hard luck season, missing superstars in their lineup such as Cam Ward and Eric Staal, the latter of which is still on the injured reserve list. Montreal recently lost defenceman Paul Mara from the lineup with a day to day injury, while blueliner Roman Hamrlik will also miss tonight’s game. Defenceman Marc-Andre Bergeron, the OT scorer from the last game against Atlanta, was also nearly lost due to an injury after he slammed into the goal post just after scoring his game winning goal. However, the bruised warrior is expecting to play tonight. The team will also welcome newcomer Benoit Pouilot to their forward lineup, the player exchanged from Minnesota for Gui Latendresse.
Who’s Hot: Watch for Hurricanes forwards Matt Cullen, and ex-Hab Sergei Samsonov, who have both scored 2 points in the past two games…Several Habs have hot hands lately. Andrei Markov (2 G, 1 A, 2 Games), Tomas Plekanec (6 points in last 2 Games), Mike Cammalleri (10 points in last 10 games) and Andrei Kostitsyn (8 points in last 6 games) have all hit their stride recently.