The Carolina Hurricanes and the New York Islanders meet in NHL action from the UBS Arena on Saturday night.
The Carolina Hurricanes will look to bounce back from a 4-3 OT loss to Anaheim last time out. Martin Necas has a team-high 28 points with 12 goals and a team-high 16 assists while Sebastian Aho also has 16 assists along with 11 goals as part of his 27 points. Andrei Svechnikov also has 25 points with a team-high 15 goals this season. Pyotr Kochetkov is 5-1-4 with a 2.44 GAA and a .914 save percentage while Antti Raanta is 4-2-2 with a 2.62 GAA and a .894 save percentage in goal for Carolina so far this season.
The New York Islanders will will be out to build on a 6-4 win over the Devils last time out. Mathew Barzal has 30 points with a team-high 27 assists while Brock Nelson has 28 points with a team-high 14 goals and 14 assists and Anders Lee has 21 points with 9 goals and 12 assists. Ilya Sorokin has gone 10-8 with a 2.33 GAA and a .933 save percentage while Semyon Varlamov is 7-3 with a 2.67 GAA and a .916 save percentage so far this season.
Carolina is 1-5 in their last 6 games against a team with a winning record and 4-1 in their last 5 games overall while the under is 4-0 in their last 4 games against the Eastern Conference. New York is 7-1 in their last 8 games against the Eastern Conference and 7-3 in their last 10 home games while the over is 10-1 in their last 11 Saturday games.
I get the reasoning for looking at either side here, but I’m going to back the over here. These are two teams that have been trending to higher-scoring games in recent outings, and that’s in line with a lot of the recent head-to-head matchups as three of the last four meetings have gone over the total including the first meeting this season. Give me the over here.