Canes host Nucks, call up AHL help

Tonight when the Carolina Hurricanes play host to the Vancouver Canucks, expect to see some new but familiar faces donning the red and black. On Sunday, Carolina called up Ryan Bayda and Keith Aucoin from Albany to ease the pain of missing forwards Andrew Ladd, Erik Cole and Scott Walker. All are expected to miss at least one more week.
As of this morning, Carolina had lost 19 man-games to injury. Ladd, Walker, Cole and defenseman Dennis Seidenberg are all expected to sit out again, which will bring the total to 23 man-games lost through the first nine games.

The only relief that Carolina will have is that they will be rested while the Canucks will not. Vancouver played in Columbus Sunday night, and won 4-1. They will arrive sometime early Monday, will probably have a light practice and an optional soccer kick-around.

Through seven games, Vancouver is 3-4-0. They've scored 20 goals and have surrendered 25. They are 2-0-0 on the road so far, and are 0-1-0 against the East. This will be their first of five road games against Southeast Division teams this season.

This will be Carolina's first Western foe of the season, and only their third home game.

Ryan Kesler is riding a three game point streak for the Canucks, while Viva and Rod Brind'Amour are both riding five game point streaks for the Hurricanes.

This will be the first time Canes fans have seen the Sedinbots and Markus Naslund in the RBC Center since before the lockout.

For a Canucks perspective of the game, including some good liveblogging, please visit Canucks and Beyond and Canucks Hockey Blog. Alanah and JJ are good folks. And don't forget Jes Golbez. He's good people too.

Expect to see Cam Ward back between the pipes.

Don't forget that the Hurricanes will be donating a portion of all walk-up ticket sales to local cancer research agencies as part of the ongoing Hockey Fights Cancer program.

The game will not be televised by FSS, so you'll have to catch it on Center Ice or, better yet, at the RBC Center.