Canes have decisions to make during stretch run

Carolina Hurricanes general manager Ron Francis has digested and analyzed all the numbers with the stretch run of the season about to begin.

Twenty-nine games left to play.

Fifty-two days to squeeze in the 29 games.

Seventeen games at home and 12 on the road.

Most importantly, going into Thursday’s NHL games, the Canes were eight points out of the second wild-card playoff position in the NHL’s Eastern Conference. That’s a lot to make up.

“Numbers-wise, it doesn’t look pretty but we do have the opportunity to make the playoffs,” Francis said Thursday. “When you look at our schedule, we’ve played less games than anybody in the Eastern Conference, from two to five games less. We have the 17 games…