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NHL on NBCSN: Disappointing Flyers, Hurricanes fight to right ship

Flyers vs Hurricanes

RALEIGH, NC - OCTOBER 06: Captains Claude Giroux #28 of the Philadelphia Flyers and Eric Staal #12 of the Carolina Hurricanes face off during play at PNC Arena on October 6, 2013 in Raleigh, North Carolina. (Photo by Grant Halverson/Getty Images)

NBCSN continues its coverage of the 2013-14 campaign tonight when the Carolina Hurricanes host the Philadelphia Flyers at PNC Arena at 7:30 p.m. ET. In addition to NBCSN, you can also watch the game online.

Both the Carolina Hurricanes and Philadelphia Flyers had high hopes going into this season and justifiably so. The campaign is still young, but neither team can be pleased about how things have gone lately.

The Flyers rank last in the Metropolitan Division with a 4-9-0 record and may have hit their low point on Friday when the Washington Capitals handed them a humiliating 7-0 loss that was punctuated by a massive brawl and Flyers goaltender Ray Emery controversially forcing Braden Holtby to fight him.

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Emery and the Flyers followed that up with a 1-0 victory over the New Jersey Devils, but that was against one of the worst offensive teams in the league on a night when two of their top forwards -- Patrik Elias and Travis Zajac -- were sidelined. The Flyers desperately needed those two points and welcomed the opportunity to put some distance between them and their blowout defeat, but they will need to do much more than that to prove that the worst is behind them.

A big offensive night would go a long way to do just that and the stage is certainly set in that regard. The Carolina Hurricanes were hit hard when netminder Cam Ward suffered a sprain MCL last season. Wanting to avoid a similar fate in 2013-14, they signed Anton Khudobin to provide them with a viable alternative between the pipes. As luck would have it, both Ward and Khudobin have been hurting, which means that Philadelphia will play against third-string goaltender Justin Peters tonight.

On top of that, Carolina has been sinking fast with five straight defeats to bring their record down to 4-7-3 this season. In addition to their goaltending woes, the Hurricanes haven’t scored more than two goals in a single game during their losing streak and even an attempt to pair up brothers Jordan and Eric Staal with Alexander Semin couldn’t provide them with the spark they desperately need.

“You could tell our jump was there at the beginning,” Jordan Staal said, dissecting Carolina’s latest loss to the News & Observer. “We just couldn’t keep it going and it wasn’t a good enough effort the rest of the game.”

The silver lining for both of these ailing teams is that their division as a whole has been pretty underwhelming so far. Carolina is just three points out of a playoff spot and as bad as Philadelphia has been, they’re only six points shy. There’s an opportunity for both squads to turn their seasons around before their task becomes daunting.

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