Tonight at 7 p.m. ET, the New York Islanders and Carolina Hurricanes open up their 2014-15 schedules when they faceoff live from the PNC Arena in North Carolina. The game can be live streamed here. New York fans can hear all of the action on WRHU 88.7 while Carolina fans can do the same on 99.9 The Fan.
Coming off of a playoff run in the shortened 2012-13 season, New York finished in last place in the Metropolitan Division a season ago with a 34-37-11 record and 79 points while Carolina didn't fare much better, finishing in seventh with a 36-35-11 record and 81 points. Both teams are out for better campaigns in 2014-15.
The Islanders made many strides to improve their team this offseason, bringing in former Toronto Maple Leafs teammates Mikhail Grabovski (13-22--35 in 2013-14) and Nikolai Kulemin (9-11--20) to round out the team's forward unit while adding goalie Jaroslav Halak to hopefully shore up the team's issues in net.
Halak went 29-13-7 in games split between the St. Louis Blues and Washington Capitals last season with a 2.31 GAA and .931 save percentage.
General manager Garth Snow wasn't done there as he made a pair of trades to spruce up the team's injured blue line last weekend by acquiring Johnny Boychuk from the Boston Bruins and Nick Leddy from the Chicago Blackhawks. With Lubomir Visnovsky (back) and Calvin de Haan (lower-body) sidelined, those two moves were big for New York.
The Islanders can't help but feel like playoff contenders after the offseason overhaul.
"There is a different feeling, for sure," coach Jack Capuano told The New York Post. "As I told the guys, the past is the past. We spent some time with them this morning to talk a little bit about moving forward, and our thought process. They're excited."
Captain John Tavares is fully recovered from a leg injury he sustained at the Sochi Olympics last year that cut his season short.
Despite his injury, Tavares still finished second on the team with 66 points off of 24 goals and 42 assists while his linemate Kyle Okposo had a career-year, putting up a team-best 69 points off of 27 tallies and 42 helpers.
The Hurricanes had a curious offseason as there wasn't much on-ice personnel change despite the seventh-place finish to the 2013-14 campaign. Carolina does enter the new season with a new general manager in Ron Francis and head coach in Bill Peters.
Already worried about depth, Carolina enters Opening Night with some key injuries as Jordan Staal is out 3-4 months with a broken leg while Jeff Skinner, who finished second on the team with 54 points a season ago, is out indefinitely with a concussion.
Captain Eric Staal paced the team with 61 points off of 21 goals and 40 assists last season, but he'll have to improve on his minus-13 rating and help solve Carolina's power play woes if the team is to make a run this season.
In net, the Hurricanes announced that Cam Ward will get the start tonight, but Anton Khudobin is waiting in the wings if he struggles.
"We like both our goaltenders and will need both our goaltenders," Peters told the News & Observer. "We're comfortable playing in front of both of them."
Ward dealt with a groin injury last season during a campaign in which he put up his worst numbers in nine years. Ward went 10-12-6 in 2013-14 with an alarming 3.06 GAA and .898 save percentage through 30 games.
Friday marks Game 1 of a home-and-home as the Islanders host the Hurricanes in the final season-opener at the Nassau Coliseum Saturday night.
The 2014-15 season kicks off for the Islanders and Hurricanes when these two teams take the ice tonight at the PNC Arena in North Carolina.
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