Young winger finding success playing with Pettersson
THE BIG MATCHUP
Pettersson vs. Svechnikov
There’s another teenage star to match the Canucks’ Dekey Pete today in Raleigh in the Hurricanes’ Andrei Svechnikov.
Carolina’s rookie scored the game-winner in Sunday ’s wild 8-5 win over the Rangers.
Svechnikov, drafted second overall in this past summer’s draft, is the first player born in the 2000s to score in the National Hockey League.
FIVE KEYS TO THE GAME
1.
Power-play prowess
From our first look at the Pettersson-Boeser dynamic on the man advantage, we knew this would be a group to watch. The Canucks don’t have a ton of fire power, but when they get their best players together, the power-play unit is one of the league’s best.
2.
Penalty killed
There were a few reasons the Canucks lost on Saturday to the Flames in Calgary; a big one was their poor work on the penalty kill. Calgary scored three goals with the man advantage. The Hurricanes are no slouches either with the extra man.
3.
First line, first gear
It has not been a good first two games for the first line of Bo Horvat, Brock Boeser and Sven Baertschi. They’ve spent most of their five-on-five time buried in their own end. They were matched up against the Flames’ first line, featuring Sean Monahan and Johnny Gaudreau and it didn’t go well. For all that Elias Pettersson is achieving now, it will be for naught if the Horvat group can’t get going.
4.
Youthful Caniacs Svechnikov is just the latest young player to be added to Carolina’s stable. The Canes also have Teuvo Teravainen, for one. There’s also Sebastian Aho, who’s centring Teravainen on the first line. The Canes have young centres in Lucas Wallmark and Martin Necas too. The team did lots of things well last season, but they still missed the playoffs. Can rookie coach Rod Brind’Amour inject the smart hockey into his players that he was so well-known for during his playing days?
5.
Carolina cookin’
High humidity and temperatures in the high 20s are expected today. That’s never a good combination for ice. And PNC Arena doesn’t have the best reputation for the condition of its ice to begin with.