Carolina Hurricanes head coach Kirk Muller reemphasized the
need for all players on his roster to contribute to their utmost abilities, regardless
of their role after practice at Raleigh Center Ice on Wednesday.
Just as the team has been skating along, sitting tied first
place in the Southeast Division with an 8-5-1 record, the Hurricanes are facing
their biggest challenge – an injury roster that increases daily.
Other than noting whether a player has an upper or lower
body injury, Muller is trying to keep his mind off of describing the specifics
of each player’s ailments – it sounded difficult for him to even put his mind
around it all.
“I feel that we had great momentum, we were rolling along
and then we had a couple days break – and then we played Montreal,” Muller
said.
“We’ve gotta’ get that energy back that we had before we had
this bit of a lull.”
The number of players added to the injured list has
increased daily with forward Jeff Skinner being the latest to appear on it as
of late Wednesday.
Add in another defenseman, Jamie McBain, being
out and the need to recall Ryan Murphy, and it is understandable to hear the
trepidation in Muller’s voice as his mind works not-stop in how to reconfigure
his team and not lose its momentum.
“We’ve got a lot of scenarios goin’ on right now, each day.
Muller said.
“We’ve gotta’ get a good first period tomorrow – we’ve gotta’
get back in the groove of things and get back into the tempo. A couple of home
games, divisional games, are going to be big.”
How the Hurricanes weather their own internal swarm of
injury bugs will be seen when they faceoff against the Winnipeg Jets at PNC
Arena on Thursday.
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