Hurricanes @ Calgary Tonight

The Hurricanes travel up highway 2 to take on the Hitmen in Calgary tonight.

Calgary beat Lethbridge 3-0 at the Enmax Centre on Saturday, but lost to the high-flying and surging Kootenay ICE Sunday. The Hitmen have one victory in their past 4 games, while the Canes' have lost two in a row. Game time tonight from the Saddledome is 7 o'clock (MT). The pre-game show on CJOC at 6:30.

This will be the 3rd meeting this month between the Canes' and Hitmen. They'll play again this coming Sunday in Calgary.

The Hurricanes continue to have trouble scoring. This has been an issue right from the start of the season. The lack of offence was put to Head Coach/GM Rich Preston last night on our Hurricanes This Week talk show. Preston noted that the games the Canes' have won this year, for the most part have all been close, low scoring games for the most part. He can't put his finger on just why the puck hasn't been going in. To date, the Hurricanes have scored just 119 goals in 45 games. That's the 4th lowest goals for total in the WHL right now.

Players likes Cam Braes and Austin Fyten are having pretty good seasons despite some of the team's struggles. Mitch Maxwell leads the team in goals with 19 in his rookie season too and of course Brandon Anderson at 17 years old has no question stepped up and is the Hurricanes goalie of the future. There are a number of positives this team can take out of what's been an up and down year.

You can bet tonight the Calgary Hitmen will be looking to get back to a consistent pace of winning. They're in quite the battle near the top of the Eastern Conference. The Hitmen are 3 and 7 in their last 10 games while the Hurricane are 5-4-0-1 in that same span. Again for the Hurricanes goaltending will have to be the key tonight, not to mention playing a disciplined game. It should be a good one. It always is between the Hurricanes and Hitmen!

Thanks,
Pat