Hurricanes prepare for playoffs as Bruins struggle for wins

The Carolina Hurricanes will look for a bounce-back performance as they continue their playoff preparation, visiting the Boston Bruins for the first and only time this season on Saturday night.

It’s the second night of a back-to-back for the Hurricanes.

Carolina (46-25-4, 96 points) took a 5-3 Friday loss to the Detroit Red Wings in the opener of a four-game trip. The defeat was only its third in the last 15 games and snapped a three-game win streak.

Despite having clinched their seventh straight Stanley Cup playoffs berth, the Hurricanes’ ride has not been completely smooth this season as they fell back following a 16-5-1 start before going 11-3-0 in March.

“There’s been a lot more, or maybe a few, extra ups and downs throughout the year that added a little more adversity in some situations,” Carolina captain Jordan Staal said. “There hasn’t been too much cruise control.”

Now, though, the Canes have an opportunity to sweep three games from Boston after winning the first two by a combined 11-4 count, including a dominant 8-2 Halloween victory.

The Hurricanes will have to do it without Andrei Svechnikov (undisclosed injury), who joined Jordan Staal (lower body) and Dmitry Orlov (undisclosed) on the shelf in Detroit. Svechnikov will miss the entirety of the trip, which continues next week in Buffalo and Washington.

“I didn’t think it was gonna be serious and I still don’t,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said of Svechnikov’s injury. “I think it’s similar to what we’re doing with (Staal). Just precautionary really, but he pulled himself out of the game. Didn’t feel great the other night.”

Jackson Blake, Eric Robinson and Brent Burns scored goals and Jaccob Slavin had two assists for Carolina in Friday’s game. Seth Jarvis is on a six-game point streak after recording an assist.

With the injuries, 22-year-old center Justin Robidas made his NHL debut, setting up Robinson’s second-period goal.

“He’s a great kid and he’s kind of earned the call-up,” Brind’Amour said. “That’s kind of how we look at it. Had a good year (for AHL Chicago), did everything that they asked him to do down there and I think we’re rewarding him with this call-up.”

The Bruins (30-37-9, 69 points) find themselves in a rare position, having dropped to the bottom of the Eastern Conference by losing 10 in a row (0-9-1) for the first time since 2010 following a 4-1 Thursday setback to the Montreal Canadiens.

Goaltender Jeremy Swayman and the rest of interim coach Joe Sacco’s team came ready to play, but it fell off in the second period as Montreal scored twice and had a 17-2 shot advantage.

Finding more wins down the stretch is going to take a more complete effort for Boston, which has not won since March 11 against the Florida Panthers.

“I think we have moments where we play well, but not long enough during the course of a game,” Sacco said. “We have to be able to sustain more of a 60-minute effort and I think that’s what it’s going to take. And we have to just understand that we have to pull out of this together.”

As defenseman Nikita Zadorov sees it, the effort will need to be harder as well.

“The other teams are just hungrier than ours,” Zadorov said. “They want to win more, that’s the bottom line. We’re just not hard on the puck. We’re easy to play against.”

Morgan Geekie has been a bright spot for Boston this season, ranking second to David Pastrnak on the team with 27 goals. An assist on Elias Lindholm’s lone goal in Montreal moved Geekie’s point streak to five games.

–Field Level Media