Pre-game thoughts: Fresh off victory over Boston, Hurricanes blow into town

The Eastern conference's 4th best team comes into town tonight. The Carolina Hurricanes, who won last night versus the Boston Bruins, will look to improve upon their 20-16-3 record.

The Jackets will once again look to get back into the 'W' column after suffering yet another loss (their 12th in a row) to the Nashville Predators. As you've all noticed recently the Jackets just can't seem to put any kind of streak together - since December this has been the pattern:

W-O-W-L-O-W-L-L-W-L-W-L

Their record in December has been 5-5-2. Two of their losses have been by 1 goal and another two were late empty netters to make it 2 goal losses. The Jackets have been in every game but have obviously come out the wrong end of a lot.

The good news is that there isn't any extended losing streaks in there. The bad news is that there isn't any extended winning streaks in there.

This is the first time we'll see Carolina in a regular season game at Nationwide since 2003. The Jackets are only 2-6-0 against this team in the overall series - ouch!

Keys to lighting em up

Great defense and goaltending. The Hurricanes have one of the most explosive offenses in the leauge. They are 3rd in the leauge with goals for with 124. They have 5, count em 5 players with 30+ points. The Jackets have one in Rick Nash. Leclaire will have to be sharp and the Jackets will have to play the suffocating defense they have shown many times this season.

Take advantage of weak defense and goaltending. While the 'canes may have a great goals for, they have an equally bad goals against. The 'canes have let in the 5th most goals in the league with 124. The Jackets must find a way to expose this and put some goals in the net.

Spark from Nash. The team has played admirably without #61 but now its time for them to keep up that game and take advantage of having Nasher back in the lineup. They need to build on his spark but don't rely on just him to provide all of the offense.

False sense of security. The 'canes are playing their 3rd game in 4 nights but we've seen this before. You'd think the 'canes would be a tired club having played last night but teams seem to do well against us in those circumstances. The Jackets must take this game to them and put any thoughts of them having some kind of advantage out of their mind or else they'll find themselves in the 'L' column.

Stay out of the box. Can't give up early momentum by getting into penalty trouble early.

Get that first goal. Again, this should be stickied. Team plays much better if they get that first tally.

Two of the 'canes top 6 scorers are out with injuries in Matt Cullen and Justin Williams. Jackets need to take advantage.

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Hard to read this one. I could easily see this going either way for the Jackets. They've been in just about every game this year but I get a funny feeling that this will either be a blowout win or a complete bottom falling out loss. There hasn't been either of those for a while.

Another Saturday night home game. Hope to see you all at the RBar Arena before the puck drops!

GO JACKETS!!

-LTL