PR - Hurricanes

LET'S GET STARTED: HURRICANES VERSUS MARAUDERS
Hurricanes finish 4th in the conference and prepare for Game 1

The Atlanta Flames win the President's Trophy; Gregory Campbell wins the
Art Ross Trophy; and no Hurricane wins a major season performance
award.  Which is no surprise to many around
the Hurricanes organization as this has been one of the worst seasons in
recent memory.

"I think we lost focus on the goal scoring touch that we had.  We have a
lot of young players, new faces, and a lot of new challenges.  I think
it's a transition year this year, and I think we'll see
more improvements in our regular season next year.  For now, it's about
the playoffs, we're playing good now, and we'll be ready for the
Marauders." Said Coach Marc Crawford.

It's been a whirlwind of the season to the point where the Hurricanes
were out of the playoffs by 10 points at one time, to finish 4th is an
incredible feat.  The team has positioned themselves in a unique
spot where they are on a roll with many players playing with a lot of
confidence including youngsters like Jason King and Matthew Lombardi.

HOW THEY STACK UP?

Centre: The Calgary Hurricanes have a veteran and former TFHL Champion
in Shawn Bates.  He's played with Markus Naslund since the "new" TFHL,
and continues to provide dominance down the middle for the Hurricanes. 
He'll be playing against any one of Eric Lindros or Alex Tanguay.  Bates
is quite comparable with Lindros.

Left Wing: Markus Naslund.  The all-star forward, former Art Ross and
Rocket Richard winner, and TFHL Champion is looking for another cup. 
He's getting up there in age but still managed to put up over 40 goals
for another season.  Naslund will be battling it out with Paul Kariya. 
Naslund has an edge in regular season stats as the Hurricanes leading
scorer with 81 points.

Right Wing: In Addition to Bryan McCabe and Sheldon Souray, the third
individual of the "Bash Brothers" is scoring star Alexandre Svitov. 
Svitov has played his entire career for the Hurricanes since being
drafted by the team 3 seasons ago.  Svitov will be providing a physical
presence on the top line along with Naslund and Bates.  His counterpart
on the Marauders will be either Richard Zednik or Jani Rita.  Svitov has
the edge in the regular season with 76 points.

Defense: The Hurricanes feature a strong depth of defensemen.  Wade
Redden will miss atleast the first game of the series with a lower body
injury, however Bryan McCabe is fresh off of his second 4 game
suspension of the season.  He will be anchoring the top line along with
either Brian Campbell or Robert Schnabel.  Calgary has been sloppy on
defense all season long, and they will need to be sharp for a strong
defensive team in the Marauders including the likes of Tim Ramholt and
Brad Ference.


The Hurricanes have plenty of depth, but the team has had struggles
finding chemistry all season long.  The second half proved to show some
possibilities but now it will come down to whether or not the team can
carry that momentum into the playoffs.


Game 1 begins in Calgary on Friday.

Calgary 2006