Another Busy Week for the Hurricanes

The Hurricanes are coming off a 3-2 overtime loss to Saskatoon Saturday at the Enmax Centre. The Canes' battled back twice from one goal deficits, forcing the overtime but lost with 1:37 to go in the extra frame. Lethbridge got an important single point in the race for positioning in what is a clogged up Eastern Conference. I thought the Canes' played well given it was their 4th game in 5 days and against a very good Blades team. The Hurricanes have managed 8 of a possible 10 points in their last 5 games and are playing better hockey as of late. The Canes' sit with a record of 23-21-2-2 after 48 games. They sit in 6th spot in the Conference, one point up on Regina, 3 back of Swift Current and 6 behind Medicine Hat, a team they play next on Wednesday of this week.

Lethbridge has 24 games remaining in the regular season. With that comes two big road trips. One of those will take the team to the U.S. during the first week of February while the last big trip will have the Canes' in Brandon, Moose Jaw, Swift Current, and Regina at the end on February and beginning of March. Also, thrown in there is another quick trip to Saskatoon and Edmonton in March. This season is flying by and for the teams battling for spots in the Eastern Conference, including the Hurricanes there isn't much room for error from here on in. Every point is critical and even one point could make the difference as to whether a team finishes 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th of even misses the post-season all together. Right now there are essentially 7 teams fighting for the final 5 spots in the East. Like last season, we probably won't know who's playing who till the final week of the regular season.

We'll see later this week if Carter Bancks, Eric Mestery, and Zach Boychuk will be back from injury. All three sat out the Canes' 3-2 loss versus Saskatoon on the weekend. Lethbridge has 3 games in 4 days this week. They host the Tigers Wednesday, Prince George is here Friday and then it's off for a day trip to Red Deer Saturday night. Another 3 games in 4 days next week will close out the January portion of the schedule for Lethbridge.

There's a lot more speculation today about the possible return of Luca Sbisa to Lethbridge from the NHL's Philadelphia Flyers. Here's a new article in the Philadelphia Daily News about Sbisa and what the Flyers are doing will salary cap issues. I guess there's always been a chance he might come back to Lethbridge. Here's the link: http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/flyers/20090119_Ed_Moran__With_Briere_returning__Sbisa_falls_under_Flyers__salary-cap_gun.html

Tonight Hurricanes This Week is back on CJOC at 7pm. Tonight it's a Hurricanes Media Panel. Joining Dick Gibson and Iwill be Paul Kingsmith from Global TV Sports in Lethbridge, Lethbridge Herald Sports Editor Dylan Purcell, and Darrell Rumold from CTV Sports in Lethbridge. We'll take your emails and phone calls.