Preview: Hurricanes at Avalanche

HURRICANES (26-26-10) at AVALANCHE (17-44-3)
9 p.m. ET; ALT, FS-CR, NHL.TV

Hurricanes team scope

Carolina Hurricanes left wing Phillip Di Giuseppe won't play because of an upper-body injury he sustained during the second period of a 2-1 win at the Arizona Coyotes on Sunday. "It's going to be a little while," coach Bill Peters said. "It's going to take some time." The Hurricanes will use 11 forwards and seven defensemen Tuesday. "We'll rotate some [defensemen] through as forwards," Peters said. "We're going to need everybody to contribute. The first goal is very important. We seem to play a little better when we have the lead, especially if we're not chasing the game." Goalie Eddie Lack will make his second consecutive start after making 25 saves against the Coyotes. The Hurricanes are 1-2-2 in theor past five games and 2-6-3 in their past 11. Defenseman Jaccob Slavin was born in Denver and grew up a half-hour north in Erie, Colorado. He'll play his first NHL game at Pepsi Center and said he expects to have 30-40 family members and friends in attendance. "I'm super-excited to be back home," he said. "There should be a lot of familiar faces out there. I watched some games here growing up and played some peewee here, so I'm definitely familiar with the building. But it will be different playing in an NHL game. It's going to be a blast."

Avalanche team scope

Goaltender Calvin Pickard will start for the Colorado Avalanche, who have scored two goals during a four-game losing streak (0-4-0) and 20 goals while going 2-11-1 in their past 14 games. "We've had a couple meetings and we're being challenged to be better," said center Nathan MacKinnon, who leads the Avalanche with 42 points (12 goals, 30 assists) in 64 games, but has gone 15 games without a goal. "The top guys have to be the best players and we haven't been good enough. It [stinks]. Scoring goals is fun and when we don't and we lose, it's tough. I'm embarrassed by how many goals we have this season. You feel like you're banging your head against the wall a lot of nights." Center Matt Duchene, who leads the Avalanche with 16 goals, has one in the past 21 games. The power play is 0-for-23 in the past 10 games. "We've got a couple of guys in the same boat," coach Jared Bednar said. "We've talked quite a bit here lately as our struggles to score, especially from those top guys, have started to add up. We want to make sure that the frustrations of the team don't overlap into their individual games. It's starting to wear on them a little bit."

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Hurricanes projected lineup

Sebastian Aho -- Jordan Staal -- Teuvo Teravainen
Jeff Skinner -- Victor Rask -- Elias Lindholm
Joakim Nordstrom -- Jay McClement -- Lee Stempniak
Derek Ryan -- Patrick Brown
Jaccob Slavin -- Justin Faulk
Noah Hanifin -- Brett Pesce
Matt Tennyson -- Ryan Murphy
Klas Dahlbeck
Eddie Lack
Cam Ward
Scratched:None
Injured:Phillip Di Giuseppe (upper body), Brock McGinn (upper body)

Avalanche projected lineup

Gabriel Landeskog -- Nathan MacKinnon -- Rene Bourque
Sven Andrighetto -- Matt Duchene -- Mikko Rantanen
John Mitchell -- J.T. Compher -- Blake Comeau
Mikhail Grigorenko -- Carl Soderberg -- Matt Nieto
Mark Barberio -- Erik Johnson
Fedor Tyutin -- Tyson Barrie
Francois Beauchemin -- Patrick Wiercioch
Calvin Pickard
Jeremy Smith
Scratched:Joe Colborne, Cody Goloubef
Injured:Nikita Zadorov (broken ankle), Semyon Varlamov (hip surgery)

Status report

McGinn will miss his fourth consecutive game. He was injured Feb. 28 against the Florida Panthers.

Who's hot

Slavin has an assist in four consecutive games. Ryan has two goals in the past three games. ... Landeskog has four points (three goals, one assist) in the past five games.