Kucherov, Lightning, seek first win in three games

HURRICANES (15-10-1) at LIGHTNING (12-8-3)
7 p.m. ET; SUN, FS-CR, NHL.TV

Tampa Bay is 0-1-1 in its past two games and will be on the second half of a back to back following a 4-3 overtime loss to the Washington Capitals on Friday.
Carolina has lost its past two games, including a 3-0 shutout at the Nashville Predators on Friday. The Hurricanes are 6-3-0 in their past nine games.

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Players to watch

Hurricanes center Sebastian Aho has 14 points (nine goals, five assists) in his past 14 games.
Lightning forward Nikita Kucherov has nine points (three goals, six assists) in his past four games.

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They said it

"They're a very good team. We've got a big challenge ahead of us. It's good to get right back into it against a good team and we'll find a way to get a good road win." -- Hurricanes captain Jordan Staal
"They're another team that plays really hard defensively. They don't give you much. They stick to their game plan. They never get too high or too low, so it's going to be a lot of hard work if we want to beat them." -- Lightning forward Brayden Point

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Hurricanes projected lineup

Nino Niederreiter -- Jordan Staal -- Warren Foegele
Andrei Svechnikov -- Sebastian Aho -- Teuvo Teravainen
Ryan Dzingel -- Lucas Wallmark
Brock McGinn -- Clark Bishop -- Jordan Martinook
Jaccob Slavin -- Dougie Hamilton
Joel Edmundson -- Brett Pesce
Jake Gardiner -- Haydn Fleury

Trevor van Riemsdyk
James Reimer
Petr Mrazek
Injured:Erik Haula (knee)
Scratched:Martin Necas

Lightning projected lineup

Ondrej Palat -- Brayden Point -- Nikita Kucherov
Carter Verhaeghe -- Anthony Cirelli -- Steven Stamkos
Tyler Johnson -- Mathieu Joseph
Pat Maroon -- Cedric Paquette -- Yanni Gourde
Victor Hedman -- Kevin Shattenkirk
Ryan McDonagh -- Erik Cernak
Mikhail Sergachev -- Luke Schenn
Jan Rutta
Curtis McElhinney
Andrei Vasilevskiy
Injured:Braydon Coburn (lower body), Alex Killorn (lower body)
Scratched:None

Status report

The Lightning will use seven defensemen. Verhaeghe will play for Killorn, who was a late scratch. … Carolina will also use 11 forwards and seven defensemen with van Riemsdyk drawing in for Necas.

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Stat pack

Svechnikov has 13 points (five goals, eight assists) in his past 10 games. … Point has seven points (five goals, two assists) in his past five games. … Teravainen has no points in his past two games after having seven points (two goals, five assists) in his previous three games. … Cirelli has nine points (five goals, four assists) in his past seven games.