Logistics first ... this game starts at 8pm, but there is a State home football game (vs Duke) starting at 12:30pm. State fans have been instructed to leave the parking lots as soon as the game is over, but parking policy typically allows 4-5 hours to vacate and if you ask nice, they'll let you park overnight. However, State fans are hardly united in their support for the Hurricanes whole thing, and they also have a horsey streak and generally don't like being told what to do. Oh, and a good chunk of them care a LOT more about their tailgate than they do the football team. Especially this year's football team. Yeah, it's gonna be a mess. I'm not sure pre-planning will help but I suggest just skipping the tailgate tonight if you are a Canes fan.
The game ... Chicago comes to town on a 5 game losing streak and dragging a -30 overall goal difference, which is tied with Vancouver for the worst goal diff in the league. They got unlucky this summer when Bedard went down with a weird training injury so they always budgeted for a slow start, but their defense is a mess, their goaltending has been nowhere as good as last season and they have only scored 37 goals ... last in the league by a fair margin. They've been getting into a bunch of cheap physical engagements an their fan base is deeply disgusted that they've taken a step back right after their rebuild had started to hit the improvement curve. So, yeah. Bad vibes.
Carolina, meanwhile, is cruising so long as you look at it from a sufficient distance. They're first in the league right now and have the best goal diff in the league. Kooch is flying out of the gate, the Top 6 has been buzzing and producing and Jaccob Slavin is healthy again. Things look good. However, they just barfed up 3 goals to the popgun Islanders in a W and got their doors blown off in Nashville on Tuesday night. They looked sketchy on D in both games, so they'll be looking to get the systems tightened up tonight as priority one, I think.
I'm not getting too deep into the stats because, frankly I've got stuff to do. Just plan your ingress with care.
The game ... Chicago comes to town on a 5 game losing streak and dragging a -30 overall goal difference, which is tied with Vancouver for the worst goal diff in the league. They got unlucky this summer when Bedard went down with a weird training injury so they always budgeted for a slow start, but their defense is a mess, their goaltending has been nowhere as good as last season and they have only scored 37 goals ... last in the league by a fair margin. They've been getting into a bunch of cheap physical engagements an their fan base is deeply disgusted that they've taken a step back right after their rebuild had started to hit the improvement curve. So, yeah. Bad vibes.
Carolina, meanwhile, is cruising so long as you look at it from a sufficient distance. They're first in the league right now and have the best goal diff in the league. Kooch is flying out of the gate, the Top 6 has been buzzing and producing and Jaccob Slavin is healthy again. Things look good. However, they just barfed up 3 goals to the popgun Islanders in a W and got their doors blown off in Nashville on Tuesday night. They looked sketchy on D in both games, so they'll be looking to get the systems tightened up tonight as priority one, I think.
I'm not getting too deep into the stats because, frankly I've got stuff to do. Just plan your ingress with care.
