Buffalo Sabres Opponent Outlook: Carolina Hurricanes

The Buffalo Sabres and Carolina Hurricanes will once again face each other three times during the 2015-2016 season, with some potential new goaltenders on either end of the ice and at least a few new faces in the lineup elsewhere.

Last season, the Buffalo Sabres and Carolina Hurricanes also faced off three times, with Buffalo winning the season series 2-1.

The Sabres won the first meeting of the season by a score of 4-3 in a shootout.

The October 14th game saw Marcus Foligno pot a pair of goals, with Torrey Mitchell also notching one. Chris Stewart, Tyson Strachan, Brian Gionta and Cody Hodgson each notched assists.

Riley Nash, Chris Terry and Zach Boychuk each scored for Carolina, but Matt Moulson and Zemgus Girgensons scored in the shootout to give Buffalo the victory.

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The teams didn’t meet again until January, and this time, it was Carolina’s turn to walk away with two points in a 5-2 victory.

Jeff Skinner, Jiri Tlusty, Eric Staal, Victor Rask and Nash all scored for the Hurricanes, while Philip Varone registered both of Buffalo’s goals. Stewart, Strachan and Mike Weber notched the assists.

Finally, the season series ended with a 4-3 Sabres win on April 6. Mikhail Grigorenko, Brian Gionta, Johan Larsson and Tyler Ennis all scored. Zach Bogosian had a pair of assists, while Gionta, Ennis, Larsson and Matt Moulson all added helpers.

Carolina’s goals came from Patrick Dwyer, Alexander Semin and Eric Staal. Staal and John-Michael Liles each had two-point nights, but it wasn’t enough to beat the Sabres that time around.

The Canes wrapped up the season with 71 points and a record of 30-41-11. They were third-worst in the Eastern Conference, ahead of Arizona and Buffalo, and put up a minus-38 goal differential. They were decent at home, putting up an 18-16-7 record, but struggling moreso on the road (12-25-4).

The Hurricanes had a quiet offseason. They lost Semin, who signed with Montreal, and Ben Holmstrom, who went to the Islanders, but other than that, it was mostly about bringing guys back. Brody Sutter, Justin Shugg, Boychuk, Rasmus Rissanen and Nash all re-signed with the Canes since July 1.

They made a few trades, sending Anton Khudobin to Anaheim in exchange for James Wisniewski.

Perhaps the bigger trade of the summer for them, however, was the acquisition of goaltender Eddie Lack from the Vancouver Canucks in exchange for draft picks. Lack joins Cam Ward as part of the Hurricanes’ goaltending tandem for 2015-2016; it’ll be interesting to see him in the Eastern Conference after having watched him with Vancouver recently.

This coming season, like last year, the Buffalo Sabres and Carolina Hurricanes once again meet three times.

They’ll first convene on Friday, November 27 for a post-Thanksgiving game in Buffalo at 7 p.m. on Black Friday.

The teams then won’t see each other until March, when they’ll face off twice in a span of 10 days. The Canes visit Buffalo for a Saturday matinee on March 12 (1 pm) before the teams reconvene in Raleigh on March 22nd to close out the season series.

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