The Carolina Hurricanes had extra time this week to ponder an unfortunate rarity.
After being shutout victims for the first time this season, the Hurricanes will try to crank it up against the Florida Panthers on Friday night in Raleigh, N.C.
Both teams will enter the game after extra time to prepare. Florida hasn’t played since Monday’s 4-3 victory at Buffalo.
The Hurricanes lost a pair of road games but picked up a point in Detroit before they were blanked 3-0 on Tuesday night in St. Louis.
The Panthers beat Carolina twice in a five-night period in December. In the second of those meetings, they used a big third period to overcome the Hurricanes in a 5-2 victory Dec. 23 in Raleigh. Then Florida lost five of its next seven games.
Of Florida’s last seven victories, five have come by one-goal margins. Nothing comes easy for the reigning champions.
“You’ve got to scratch and claw and stay on it and stay at it,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. “We are comfortable, I think, in that.”
A string of dull first periods has contributed to Carolina’s shortcomings. The Hurricanes have discussed that topic throughout much of the season.
“You can’t put yourself in that hole consistently,” captain Jordan Staal said. “We’ve got to do a better job with our starts and investing in how we do things, how we play the game, to tilt it in our favor.”
Further disappointment for the Hurricanes has come on inconsistent power plays. They’ve scored two power-play goals in two of the last six games but went 0-for-9 in the other four.
The power-play units will be looking to regain crispness.
“There was a lot of one-and-dones,” Staal said. “We’d get one shot, and they’d send it down. We had a tough time getting it back in their end as well. There wasn’t good enough steady pressure and good shots and retrievals.”
Sergei Bobrovsky has played four consecutive games as Florida’s goalie. He’s aiming for his 20th victory of the season, attempting to reach that mark for the ninth time in a 10-season span — with the exception a 19-win mark in the shortened 2020-21 season.
The Panthers might have forward Brad Marchand back after missing two games with an injury. He has returned to the ice for limited practice participation.
“That’s an upgrade from where he was,” Maurice said. “I don’t know if that puts him in the lineup for Carolina, but he’s ahead of where he was.”
It’s also trending toward Florida forward Matthew Tkachuk making his season debut soon, as he has had about two weeks of practice. He underwent surgery for a torn adductor muscle and sports hernia in August.
The Hurricanes figure to have defenseman Jaccob Slavin available. He didn’t play in St. Louis on the night following a game in Detroit, but that was described as part of his injury rehab protocol.
The Panthers spent part of Thursday visiting the White House, where they were recognized for winning the 2025 Stanley Cup.
–Field Level Media
