NHL Game of the Week: Carolina Hurricanes vs. Pittsburgh Penguins

The NHL season is officially in full swing here in week two of the season. Some fans believe their team will win the cup while others are already looking forward to June.

In this week's game of the week, the Penguins are on home ice on Friday night for the second game in a row when they play host to the Carolina Hurricanes.

Carolina (1-1-0) comes into this one off of a 4-2 win over the New Jersey Devils.

The Hurricanes have only played two games to this point with their game last Saturday against Tampa being postponed due to Hurricane Milton.

Head coach Rod Brind’Amour is in his seventh season behind the bench in Carolina.

The Canes were 52-23-7 a year ago and finished second in the Metropolitan Division with a loss to the Rangers in Round 2.

The Canes have some holes to fill with the key departures of Jake Guentzel (signed with Tampa Bay), Teuvo Teravainen (signed with Chicago) and Stefan Noesen (signed with New Jersey) in the offseason.

This will have Jack Drury and Jesperi Kotkaniemi seeing larger roles for at least the beginning of the season.

Carolina also has to piece their D-core together after losing Brett Pesce (signed with New Jersey) and Brady Skjei (signed with Nashville). Slavin and Burns remain the top pair but the additions of Sean Walker and Shayne Gostisbehere will be huge.

Pittsburgh (3-2-0) comes into this matchup fresh off a 6-5 win over the Buffalo Sabres in OT.

The game was an absolute barnburner with the Pens coming from behind twice, first from a 3-1 deficit and then 5-4 late in the third.

There are some serious concerns in net with Tristan Jarry looking like an absolute sieve.

Jarry has just looked out of it early on this year and frankly, I really don't think he cares.

He has been off his angle so many times which has led to weak goals being let in.

He even gave the puck away for the first goal of the game on Wednesday night against Buffalo and let in three of the first five shots he faced.

At least rookie Joel Blomqvist has looked good so far, so maybe there's hope between the pipes after all.

The Penguins capped off a milestone night on Wednesday with Geno Malkin becoming the 48th player in NHL history to tally 500 career goals.

Sidney Crosby also reached 1,600 career points for his outstanding career. It also makes too much sense that Crosby assisted on Malkin's goal.

There are still question marks on the back end. Erik Karlsson has been weak on defense and don't even get me started on Ryan Graves.

Friday will be the first of three meetings this season between the Pens and Canes and like always, I’m sure it will be electric.

Games between these two always seem to go to overtime or finish a one-goal game and I expect this to continue this season as well.

Pittsburgh is looking to build some momentum while Carolina kicks off their six-game road trip.

Puck drop is set for 7 p.m. Friday night.

Austin Moran is a second-year majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email acm6506@psu.edu.