Hurricane watch

The road-weary Carolina Hurricanes are in town tonight. The Hurricanes started this season with two games (and two wins) against Minnesota in Helsinki, then played road games against Ottawa, Vancouver and San Jose (a 5-2 victory last night). You have to feel for the Hurricanes, who won’t play their home opener until Oct. 27. That’s a brutal first month.

Last season, the Kings played at Carolina and won 5-2 (in a rare appearance for Erik Ersberg). The Hurricanes were awful at that point — the loss dropped them to 2-12-3 — but they’re 3-2-0 so far this season and look improved. Here are Terry Murray’s thoughts…

MURRAY: “They come with a lot of speed, a lot of quickness. Their forwards are highly skilled, and that’s the kind of attack game that they showed in the early part of the season here. They’re coming back from a trip from Europe, so it takes a little while to get reorganized and get rested up. It seems like they got their A game on track last night.”

The Kings are in the middle of their own scheduling quirk, albeit a much less disruptive one. After playing four games in seven days to start the season, they got a four-day break and now start a stretch in which they play seven games in 11 days.

MURRAY: “Everybody is looking forward to getting going. It was a good break, a needed break, I think. Guys were going through the month of August, and training camp was very hard. This was really our first break. It was good. We got rested and regrouped and we’re going to have to be going tonight. Carolina played last night, a very intense game. They played fast, with a lot of intensity in their game, and we’re going to have to be ready to go.

“The first period is always critical when you get into a game when you haven’t played for several days. Getting a north attitude, to me, is going to be very important. They’re a team that plays a 1-3-1 in the neutral zone. There’s not a lot of room for plays, so being cute is going to come right back at you. Get it behind them, get in and get the forecheck game going. Have some possession time in the offensive zone and start shooting the puck a lot more than what we have.”