so they have Tavares.... the Canes have Staalx2, Semin, Skinner, Tlusty, ...............Nash and Bowman. they can't all "not come to play" or not "bring their A game" thereby "disappointing" coach Muller. the Islanders have Nabokov, the Hurricanes have Ward who has been stellar and can easily just "say no" to Tavares. defences stack up. team personnel has been improved overall.
team stats so far are similar and they owned them last year scoring plenty of goals. the Isles scored plenty of PP goals last season however the Cane's PK is much better now. yeah, no reason whatsoever this 'shouldn't' be a very winnable game.