Banged Up Carolina Hurricanes Look To Go Up 3-0 On Islanders

The conventional wisdom in all professional sports is that a team needs to stay healthy to succeed in the postseason. The Carolina Hurricanes apparently ‘didn’t get the memo’. They’ve continued to play solid hockey despite a growing list of injuries and will look to go up 3-0 when they play the New York Islanders at the PNC Arena in Raleigh, NC on Wednesday night.

The ‘canes have made ‘winning ugly’ an art form during the postseason. In Game 1 of this series they headed to overtime locked in a scoreless tie before Jordan Staal scored at the 4:04 mark to give Carolina a 1-0 win. In Game 2, the Islanders controlled play for most of the contest outshooting the Hurricanes 27-18 and holding the edge in most statistical categories. New York took a 1-0 lead in the first period on a power play goal by Mathew Barzal and took that lead into the third period only to have the Hurricanes score twice in less than a minute to start the third period. Carolina managed to maintain that 2-1 advantage and thus are heading home up 2-0 in the series.

While the Islanders desperately need to avoid falling into a 0-3 deficit the Hurricanes could be facing their biggest challenge of the playoffs for a different reason. Goaltender Petr Mrazek went out in Game 2 and will be unable to play here. In the ‘big picture’ the news was good–what was feared to be a serious injury ended up being far less significant. He’s listed as ‘day to day’ meaning that well traveled journeyman netminder Curtis McElhinney will be between the pipes for Carolina. McElhinney has always been a well regarded–and well traveled–backup option that previously played in Calgary, Anaheim, Ottawa, Phoenix, Columbus and Toronto. His longest stint with one team came backing up Sergei Bobrovsky with the Blue Jackets.

This will be a significant personal milestone for McElhinney as he’s making his first career playoff start. In the process, he’s setting a National Hockey League record–at age 35, he’s the oldest goalie in league history to make their first playoff start. He’ll be 37 days older than Les Binkey, who made his first postseason start for the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1970. McElhinney was strong in relief of Mrazek in Game 2, stopping all 17 shots he faced to preserve the Hurricanes win. Carolina head coach Rod Brind’Amour has the utmost confidence in McElhinney:

“I think what it is is a luxury that we have a guy that we have equal confidence in. Thankfully, we have that situation. … We have a guy that we all trust who’s been good all year. It’s not like we’re hoping he’s going to be good.”

The Hurricanes did receive some good news about rookie forward Andrei Svechnikov who could return here after missing 6 games with a concussion. The status of Jordan Martinook and Michael Ferland are less clear–Martinook is listed as ‘day to day’ while Ferland is listed as a ‘game time decision’. Defenseman Trevor van Riemsdyk is being reported as ‘out’ for this game though he’s listed as ‘questionable’. The Islanders will be without defenseman Johnny Boychuk and forward Tanner Fritz, both of whom went out earlier in the month.

The Hurricanes came on strong late in the season–they’re 36-17 since the All Star Break–and they’ve won 6 of their last 7. Carolina’s fan base isn’t typically thought of as one of the best in the league but the PNC Arena was absolutely insane during the Washington series. Carolina just looks to be the better team right now and the small chalk NHL betting odds price looks reasonable.

BET CAROLINA HURRICANES -117 OVER NEW YORK ISLANDERS