- 1 Carolina Hurricanes vs Columbus Blue Jackets: 33.9 shots a night against a team still looking for a road point
- 2 Carolina Hurricanes: Aho at 18 points, and a goaltending split that favors Kochetkov
- 3 Columbus Blue Jackets: 2.33 goals a game, and 0-2-0 on the road
- 4 Free NHL Prediction: Carolina Hurricanes vs Columbus Blue Jackets
- 5 About our free predictions
- 6 No commitment from us
- 7 Information changes
- 8 Your responsibility
- 9 Responsible gambling
- 10 Legal age
- 11 About visuals
Carolina Hurricanes vs Columbus Blue Jackets: 33.9 shots a night against a team still looking for a road point 
Carolina is taking 33.9 shots per game and allowing 22.4, the kind of gap that usually belongs to a team sitting near the top of the league. The Hurricanes are 9-2-2 with 51 goals scored and 33 allowed, and on Thursday 29 October they host Columbus at the Lenovo Center, with puck drop at 7:00pm ET.
Most of that record was built away from Raleigh. Carolina is 7-1-1 on the road and only 2-1-1 at home, where the season began with a 1-0 overtime loss to Florida and a 5-2 defeat to Washington. The Hurricanes have since beaten Vancouver 7-2 and Washington 4-2 on home ice, and they host Boston on Tuesday before this game.
Columbus comes in at 4-5-0 and hasn’t won a road game yet. The Blue Jackets lost 5-3 in St. Louis and 2-1 in Minnesota, and Tuesday’s trip to Philadelphia is their third away game of the season. Thursday makes it two road games in three nights.
The underlying numbers explain the record. Columbus scores 2.33 goals per game and allows 3.33, with shot totals of 26.8 for and 27.7 against. Three of the four wins needed overtime or a shootout, including a 1-0 overtime win over the Rangers.
I’ll argue below that Carolina wins this comfortably, which is a stronger claim than simply picking the home team. Seven of the Hurricanes’ nine wins have come by two goals or more, including a 7-2 home win over Vancouver and Saturday’s 4-0 shutout in St. Louis.
Carolina Hurricanes: Aho at 18 points, and a goaltending split that favors Kochetkov 
Sebastian Aho leads the team with 18 points, seven goals and 11 assists. Logan Stankoven has a team-high eight goals, Jackson Blake has 13 points with 11 assists, and Andrei Svechnikov has six goals and six assists. Scoring is spread across the lineup, which is how a team reaches 3.92 goals per game.
The road trip that ended in St. Louis on Saturday showed both sides of this team. Carolina won 6-3 in Vancouver, lost 6-5 in a shootout in Edmonton, then shut out the Blues 4-0. The Hurricanes outshot St. Louis 39-24 in that win.
Pyotr Kochetkov stopped all 24 shots in St. Louis and has a .916 save percentage across his seven appearances. Brandon Bussi has been less steady, at .865 over six appearances, and he allowed five goals on 21 shots in Edmonton. The choice of starter is worth checking before puck drop, since Tuesday’s game against Boston could decide the rotation.
The absences are in the bottom of the lineup. Jordan Staal is on injured reserve, and Mark Jankowski and Alexander Nikishin are listed as out. None of the three is among the team’s top scorers, so the attack has been unaffected so far.
The home form is the only wrinkle in the profile. Both home losses came in the season’s first two games, and the Hurricanes have won both home games since by a combined 11-4.
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Columbus Blue Jackets: 2.33 goals a game, and 0-2-0 on the road 
The Blue Jackets’ leading scorer is Charlie Coyle with eight points, seven of them assists. Kent Johnson has a team-high four goals and seven points, and Zach Werenski has six assists without a goal. No Columbus player has more than four goals after nine games.
The win over Vegas on Saturday ended a two-game losing streak. Cam Talbot made 26 saves on 27 shots, Denton Mateychuk and Adam Fantilli scored, and Johnson had two assists. It was a 2-1 overtime win, and it followed a 6-2 home loss to Toronto in which Jet Greaves allowed five goals on 19 shots.
Greaves produced the team’s best goaltending night of the season, a 31-save shutout in the 1-0 overtime win over the Rangers on 17 October. His overall save percentage is .883, and Talbot’s is .891. Neither number gives Columbus much margin when the team is scoring 2.33 a game.
Columbus has allowed 15 goals across its last three losses, including seven at home to Florida and six at home to Toronto. When games open up, the Blue Jackets haven’t been able to keep pace, and Carolina’s shot volume tends to open games up.
The trip is the other issue. Columbus plays in Philadelphia on Tuesday and in Raleigh on Thursday, with a day in between, and it’s still looking for its first road point of the season after the losses in St. Louis and Minnesota.
Probable lineup Carolina Hurricanes: Not announced at time of publication
Probable lineup Columbus Blue Jackets: Not announced at time of publication
Free NHL Prediction: Carolina Hurricanes vs Columbus Blue Jackets
Our prediction: Carolina Hurricanes -1.5 (puck line)
Carolina outshoots opponents by more than 11 a game, and Columbus is giving up 27.7 shots while scoring 2.33 goals. A team that controls play that heavily against an opponent that struggles to score is the setup for a multi-goal win, and seven of Carolina’s nine wins have come by two or more.
The risk is a hot goaltender. Greaves shut out the Rangers, and one night like that would be enough to keep this within a goal. Columbus has also played four of its nine games to overtime or a one-goal finish, which shows it can hang around.
I’d still take the Hurricanes on the puck line. The Blue Jackets’ road record, their 15 goals allowed in the last three losses and a second road game in three nights all point to a game Carolina should control for 60 minutes.
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