Hurricanes vs Panthers (10.09.03)
 

Opening lineup should look something like this:

Francis -- Staal -- O'Neill
Vasicek -- Brind'Amour -- Cole
Vrbata -- Adams -- Adams
Svoboda -- Murray -- Boulerice

Hedican -- Markov
Wesley -- Hill
Ward -- St. Jacques

Weekes
Storr

Does that look about right?

I know it's still up in the air with the last two forward spots.. Svoboda, Daniels, Boulerice, Tetarenko.. But I'm fairly confident that Svoboda and Boulerice will get the spots.

Boughner is out for a couple weeks with the broken hand.. Storr isn't in game shape, so it will be awhile before we see him. Cole and Brind'Amour are ''chomping at the bit" in anticipation of getting back in the lineup.. This teams needs both of them in a bad way. Overall, looks like a pretty solid lineup. Can't wait to listen to the game tonight.

Mo stated a couple of days ago that Tetarenko and Boulerice would be in the lineup simply because of Florida's penchant to use a lot of goons. It is a Mike Keenan team. Everything else in your lines looks dead on.

Thanks for the info, CanesFan10. I had no idea.

Looks like that would leave Svoboda, Daniels, and Wallin as the scratches for tonight, correct?

If Mo sticks to his original plan.

How did Boughner break his hand? Was it in a game?

Pre-season fight with Matt Pettinger.

The NandO this AM had Svoboda on the fourth line and Tetarenko in the press box, but we'll just have to wait and see. The rest is correct except that Vrbata will play right wing on the thrid line with C Adams moving over to the left.

1st Period
Florida 11:59, Niklas*Hagman 1 (Mikael*Samuelsson)

Doesn't sound like there is a whole lot of chances so far.

2nd period
Carolina 19:45, Cole (Hill, Vasicek)

Barely missed making that a powerplay goal. Sounded like a great play by Brind'Amour to keep the play alive.

Man it is great to have those two (Brind'Amour and Cole) back!

1-1 after two periods.

3rd Period
Florida 7:37, Kristian Huselius 1 (Valeri Bure)
Florida 18:25, Viktor Kozlov 1 (empty net) (Olli Jokinen, Eric Messier)

HORTON POWER
mAWAHAHAHAHAHA
that was a great game, but Horton out played Staal.
I was surprised staal is first line center

Svoboda did play on the fourth line with Murray and Boulerice and IMO looked pretty good. They had a few chances and I think this is the best 4th line this team has had in a while. Now all Mo has to do is play them.

I thought the Brind'Amour line looked the best out there and the Francis line looked the worst.

I just got home from the game and I have to agree with you there. It seemed to me that Francis was playing like he's actually as old as he is. Weekes made some fantastic saves but I noticed he drops to his knees too quickly (that was the reason for the Huselius goal). IMO, FL just played within their system better and thats the reason for the win. It also looked like Carolina was missing that edge that Boughner usually brings to the table. I think the game up in Raleigh will be an interesting one to watch next week.

Just so you know, I used to live up in NC until last yr (ECU grad so I was about 77 miles to the east of Raleigh). It wasn't until last yr that I even took any interest in Carolina...guess I should've jumped on the bandwagon when they were going to the Stanley Cup instead of having a ton of injuries

No argument there. This game came down to who made the first mistake and the Canes made that mistake. The game probably would have ended 1-1 had St. Jacques not coughed up the puck in the third.