(Line pairings subject to change and/or the signing of Scott Gomez.)
Caroline:
Boychuk/EStaal/Semin
Skinner/JStaal/Dalpe
Tlusty/Jokinen/Char
Bowman/Brent/Dwyer/Westgarth assembled together somehow.
Gleason/Faulk
Sangs/Harrison
Pitkanen/McCorvoBain
(Gosh, your guess is as good as mine.)
Goalie: Cameron Kenneth Ward, a gentleman and a scholar.
=+=+=+=+=+=+
FIU:
Fleischmann/Weiss/Versteeg (Probably not)
Skinner Imposter/Mueller/Kovalev
Kopecky/Matthias/Upshall
Parros/Smithson/Skille
Kuba/Campbell
Kulikov/Ellerby
Jovanovski/Strachan
Goalie: Jose Theodore
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
Game Day Notes:
1.) Apparently Panthers fans were not amused with Jovo being named team captain. Perhaps they came around eventually, but I quit reading the thread after a couple of pages. Classic tl;dr.
2.) The Panthers will be raising their Division Champions banner tonight. No word on if they will be saluting the Hurricanes with faux golf swings and for their outright assist in obtaining said banner, as the Canes helpfully went 1-5 against Fla in 2011-12.
3.) Reading or saying the name "Huberdeau" will give you hours of amusement.
4.) Much like here in Carolina after the acquisitions of Semin and JStaal, expectations are running high in Florida after they broke a decade long playoff drought with the 2011-12 campaign. Therefore: one of these two teams will disappoint its fan base in remarkable -- but as of today unknown -- fashion by the time the season is over.
5.) There is some guy named Jamie McBain on the Hurricanes, but we don't talk about him much any more. This makes not talking about Joe Corvo really, really challenging.
Prediction:
5-1 Canes loss, with Dan Ellis surrendering four of those five goals. Cam Ward is out after hurting himself trying to make a save on a Dalpe own goal.