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CAROLINA HURRICANES VS WASHINGTON CAPITALS- 7:00PM EDT/4:00PM PDT- (Washington leads 2-1)
The Carolina Hurricanes weren’t given a chance by many after drawing last year’s Champs in their first playoff series in 10 years, but after a rather convincing 5-0 win on Monday night, they can head back to Washington tied at 2 with a win tonight. They’ll be without Micheal Ferland and Andrei Svechnikov tonight, but the Canes did a great job of carrying on without them in Game 3. You likely want them back sooner than later, though. The Caps need to be able to score early, as the team that’s scored first has won each game so far. They’re also going to have to try and shutdown the Canes PP and try to get some magic going on the man advantage themselves. Braden Holtby hasn’t been terribly impressive so far, and he’s going to need to tighten things up if the Caps want to send this back to DC for an elimination game this weekend.
WINNIPEG JETS VS ST LOUIS BLUES- 8:30PM EDT/5:30PM PDT- (Series tied 2-2)
The winner of this series is likely going to be the one who actually makes home ice advantage. After the Blues took the first two games in Winnipeg, the Jets returned the favour in St Louis. The Jets have a bit of momentum after a come from behind win in OT Tuesday and that should have the White Out crowd at the MTS Center even louder tonight. A lot of the focus tonight will be on the Blues rookie goaltender Jordan Binnington and how he responds after 2 straight losses. The pressure’s squarely on the Blues now, who have been playing playoff style hockey for almost 4 months now. The cracks are starting to show, and they may run out of steam.
SAN JOSE SHARKS VS VEGAS GOLDEN KNIGHTS- 10:00PM EDT/7:00PM PDT- (Vegas leads 3-1)
To say the last couple games in Vegas were a disaster is an understatement. The fears about the Sharks goaltending heading into this series now seem to be justified. I haven’t seen someone take a beating like that in Vegas since Clark W. Grizwold. And yet, they’re going to give Martin Jones another chance to redeem himself. If this works, Pete DeBoer looks like a genius and they can try and figure out how to extend this series to a Game 7 at home. If it doesn’t, You have to think changes are coming in San Jose, as this was expected to be another season of them being contenders to challenge for the Cup. While they’ll look to fix their goaltending, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we see Joe Thornton retire, they may also want to think about getting a coach who kept playing Martin Jones despite the fact he is obviously broken. As far as Vegas goes, they could lose this game and not bat an eyelash, but I would expect them to come out hard tonight and end this. Given all the trash talk in this series, I would think they’re going to try and make a statement that they are the team to beat in the West, and are going to do the hockey version of putting heads on pikes tonight.
GAME DAY BATTLE HYMN
Some ENTOMBED for you today, the Swedish death metal legends with the title track off the ‘Hollowman’ album.