Canes' at Saskatoon This Afternoon

Happy New Year from Saskatoon!

We arrived here last night around 6 o'clock last night after a roughly 7 hour bus ride from Lethbridge. After checking into the hotel, we all watched the final two periods of the Canada/USA World Junior game before heading out for a New year's Eve team meal. The team had a short video meeting after that and headed off to bed to get ready for today's mid-afternoon game against the Blades.

In yesterday's World Junior game, Hurricanes forward Zach Boychuk left after falling awkwardly into the boards. He was helped off the ice. He returned a short time later, but left the ice again. We hope to have a better idea regarding Boychuk's status and injury come game time so stay tuned to the broadcast today. I'm sure all Hurricanes fans watching that game and seeing Boychuk leave injured were likely thinking the same thing....."Oh no, not another one!" Lethbridge is already down 4 players with injury while 3 are away at either World Juniors or Under 17's. The Hurricanes really can't afford to add another member to the list of walking wounded. They only have 9 forwards and 5 defencemen right now as well as two young goalies. The 4 injured players did make the road trip with us, but if and when they'll play isn't known. Juha Metsola may return soon given the Finnish team has been relegated at the World Juniors. No question though the Canes' are going through another rough patch here, but the players that are here will simply have to pull up their socks and get the job done. Again, the Hurricanes have to see this challenge as an opportunity for some players to step up and lead the way in these situations and maybe steal a win or two on this road trip.

Lethbridge lost to Brandon this past Tuesday 5-4 with roughly the same line-up we'll see today. I thought it was the Canes' best effort in the 3 games they lost at home after the Christmas break despite having a short bench. There were a few mistakes with coverage in the zones and such, but overall they battled back to make the game interesting and gave a pretty decent effort for the home town fans. That being said, this team has lost 4 games in a row now and will look to stop some of the bleeding here today in Saskatoon.

The Blades won the only other meeting between these teams so far which was played back in October in Lethbridge. Game time today is 3pm. The pre-game show on CJOC at 2:30.