Carolina Hurricanes @ New York Rangers: Game Preview

Mar 21, 2023 - 1:00 PM

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Another monumental clash between Metro division titans is upon us and tonight it will be the Carolina Hurricanes facing off against the New York Rangers at MSG, aka the cursed lands.

The Canes have yet to beat the Rags this season, losing 5-3 in January and 6-2 in February, so will March prove to be a more fruitful month for the team that assuredly has some playoff grievances they’d like to air out?

The new faces to New York’s lineup, Vladimir Tarasenko and Patrick Kane will surely give Carolina’s backend even more trouble than they were already having, so this will be a good litmus test to see how the Hurricanes are holding up at this point of the season.

And if the one matchup doesn’t seem like enough, there’ll be another one right after it as the Hurricanes will host the Rangers at PNC Arena on Thursday, just two days later.

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Game Notes

• Brady Skjei is currently on a three-game goal scoring streak. Will he keep it going against his former team?
• Sticking with Skjei, his 15 goals this season are both a career high, and the fifth most among all defensemen currently. He also sits only three behind Dougie Hamilton’s team record for goals by a defensemen in a single season (18).
• The blueline scoring is also on pace to set a new franchise record. The Hurricanes currently pace the league in scoring by defensemen with 46 tallies, and they just need six more tallies to set the new franchise record (51 goals on both 79-80 and 80-81).
• The Rangers are coming off of consecutive shutouts while also scoring at least 6+ goals in each of those games. Talk about effectiveness on both ends.
• New York also heads into the game on a seven-game point streak and winners of their last four.