Bruins, Hurricanes back at it in Saturday matinee

HURRICANES (8-10-4) at BRUINS (14-6-2)

TV: NHLN-US, SPSO, NESN

Last 10: Carolina 4-5-1; Boston 6-2-2

Season series: This is the second of three meetings between the Carolina Hurricanes and Boston Bruins. They met Monday at PNC Arena with the Bruins winning 4-1 behind a goal and an assist each from Reilly Smith and Carl Soderberg.

Big story: In the past week the Hurricanes have seen franchise goaltender Cam Ward and young gun Jeff Skinner return to the lineup; now they need to put some points in the bank, as a three-game losing streak has seen them drop in the Metropolitan Division. The Bruins continue to lead the Atlantic despite a 3-2 shootout loss Thursday to the St. Louis Blues.

Team Scope:

Hurricanes: Center Elias Lindholm, the fifth pick in the 2013 NHL Draft, is back with Carolina following a brief American Hockey League stint with the Charlotte Checkers in which he had one goal and two assists in six games. Lindholm, who turns 19 on Dec. 2, has one goal and one assist in 10 games for the Hurricanes.

Ward lost to Boston in his first game back, then watched as Justin Peters stopped 43 shots but still suffered a 4-3 loss to the Detroit Red Wings on Thursday. Defenseman Andrej Sekera had his first career two-goal game in the defeat.

"It's too bad because I thought we played a hard game," coach Kirk Muller said in The Raleigh News & Observer. "We're getting opportunities to win these hockey games and … I guess we'll take responsibility as a staff. Our power play has to come through and it hasn't [1-for-25 in the past eight games]."

Bruins: The legendary Bobby Orr dropped the ceremonial first puck prior to the game Thursday against the Blues, the team against which he scored his famous overtime goal to win the 1970 Stanley Cup. The game that followed suggested these teams might be in line to meet again for the most revered trophy in sports about six months from now.

Gregory Campbell opened the scoring for Boston late in the first period, but St. Louis drew even 31 seconds later. The Bruins fell behind in the second, but Carl Soderberg quickly answered. The teams remained scoreless through the third and overtime before Derek Roy's goal in the fourth round of the shootout sent the Bruins with one point instead of two.

"It's been a while since we've played a good, solid 60 minutes like that," coach Claude Julien said in The Boston Globe. "With the circumstances, we had some young guys back there who played extremely well tonight. You could see St. Louis trying to come at us hard, hopefully to force our young guys to make mistakes. But they were solid. They made some real good plays. I was really proud of our back end tonight."

Who's hot: Eric Staal has two goals and two assists during a four-game point streak for the Hurricanes. … The fourth line of Campbell, Daniel Paille and Shawn Thornton has combined for three goals and two assists during the past two games for the Bruins.

Injury report: Carolina placed forward Alexander Semin (concussion) on injured reserve Thursday; he joins goalie Anton Khudobin (lower body). Forward Kevin Westgarth (upper body) has also been out of the lineup. … Boston defenseman Dennis Seidenberg (lower body) is out indefinitely. Defenseman Adam McQuaid (hip/groin) practiced Friday and is a possibility to return to the lineup.