The Kane news is what sets this one up. He left Monday's 5-2 loss to Colorado with an upper-body injury and is now listed out, and he's missed the rest of this road trip. Dillon Boucher made his NHL debut at 29 to take Kane's spot and is projected on the 4th line with Cole Smith and Ryan Greene. Bowen Byram is still on injured reserve with an upper-body issue that the Sun-Times says needs a specialist. That leaves the blue line thin and the forward group without its most dangerous veteran.
Carolina is priced as a heavy favorite, and the puck line has moved toward the Hurricanes since it opened. That's about how the 2 teams are playing, and it's ugly for Chicago. On TNT during the 5-3 loss in Sunrise, Paul Bissonnette called them "a soft team" that doesn't check or forecheck well. The Hawks managed 20 shots that night, and the Florida game left them still winless on the road. Raleigh is the last stop of the trip.
You can find a few positives for Chicago if you look. Connor Bedard had 2 assists against Florida and finished his checks all night, and he's projected between Tyler Bertuzzi and Kantserov on the top line. Frank Nazar ended a 7-game goal drought with 2 goals in the 3rd period that got it to 4-3. The Hawks also put up 4 in Boston and 3 in Florida during the skid, so the offense isn't completely dead. The problem is the other end, where they've given up 4 or 5 goals in every game of the streak.
Carolina has been beating everybody and isn't always pretty about it. The 7-0 win over Winnipeg was their best of the last 5. The 4-1 loss in Nashville was the dud. Then came Thursday at UBS Arena: up 2-0 after the 1st, 3 straight Islanders goals in the 2nd, and a 2-0 3rd period to close out the 5-3 win. Andrei Svechnikov's go-ahead goal was his 7th of the season, and William Carrier and Jalen Chatfield also scored. The Hurricanes have also won all 3 home games in their last 5, by 2-1, 3-2 and 7-0.
Carolina has injuries of its own. Jordan Staal is on IR, which takes out the checking center they'd normally send out against a team's best line. Alexander Nikishin is day-to-day. In net, Saturday's previews project Spencer Knight for Chicago and Pyotr Kochetkov for Carolina, and Kochetkov's 1.64 GAA is among the best marks in the league. Even so, Carolina is deep enough that it's still the team that forechecks harder, against an opponent that just got called soft on national TV. Both teams played Thursday and got Friday off, so neither one has a rest edge. What Chicago needs is a clean 60 minutes, and it hasn't put one together in a couple of weeks.
