Carolina Hurricanes build a young defensive foundation

In Noah Hanifin’s first professional game, the defenseman was in the Carolina Hurricanes’ starting lineup, looked across the ice before the opening faceoff and saw Sidney Crosby of the Pittsburgh Penguins.

There he was, No. 87, head down, game face on, ready to play. Crosby.

“It was pretty surreal,” Hanifin said. “It was crazy. I’ve been watching him since I was about 8 years old. Just to be out there playing against him was awesome.”

The night before, in Washington, Carolina’s Haydn Fleury at times was on the ice against the Capitals’ Alexander Ovechkin. That, too, can be a bit intimidating for a young D-man in the NHL.

Hanifin is 18 years old and Fleury 19. Both were first-round selections by Carolina – Fleury the No. 7 overall pick in the 2014 NHL draft and Hanifin No. 5 this year – and each figures prominently in the Hurricanes’ future plans.

It’s an ambitious plan. General manager Ron Francis is banking on younger players such as defenseman Justin Faulk, and forwards Jeff Skinner, Elias Lindholm and Victor Rask in patiently, if painstakingly, building a foundation for the Canes. Carolina has missed the Stanley Cup playoffs the past six years, finishing 30-41-11 last season, but Francis likes the pieces he’s putting in place.

“We want to have a team capable of reaching the playoffs every season,” Francis said. “You do that through drafting and developing your younger players and we’ll continue to do that. We have 10 picks in the top three rounds of the draft the next two years. We need to draft well, develop well and do everything we can to get them here as quick as we can.”

Faulk and Skinner are 23, the oldest of the group and already established players in the league, and Lindholm and Rask are on their way. Hanifin and Fleury should soon join them.

In the preseason game in Pittsburgh, Hanifin had two reassuring thoughts in the course of the 7-3 loss to the Pens.

The first was that he had Faulk, an NHL All-Star last season, as his defensive partner.

The second was that though he’s a rookie, fresh out of college, talented but unproven in the NHL, he did not feel out of place.

“I didn’t,” Hanifin said. “It wasn’t so much feeling out of place as more just figuring it out. You need to figure it out and you need experience to do that.”

Bevy of prospects

Four years ago, Faulk was given time to figure it out. While he played some games in Charlotte for the Checkers of the American Hockey League in the 2011-12 season, most of it was spent with the Hurricanes, playing, learning from his mistakes.

Faulk spent a season in college before turning pro, winning the 2011 national championship as a freshman at Minnesota-Duluth. He has played for the U.S. in the Olympics and World Championships, and has made his name – and game – known among his NHL peers.

Hanifin, after a year at Boston College in his hometown, hopes to follow the same career trajectory. So does Fleury, although his career ascent may be different in that the Canadian has played major junior hockey in the Western Hockey League.

And it’s not just about Hanifin and Fleury. The Hurricanes have a bevy of defensive prospects. Ryan Murphy, a first-round pick in 2011, is 22. Jaccob Slavin, Brett Pesce, Roland McKeown, Trevor Carrick and Tyler Ganly all are 21 or younger.

“We’ve got a lot of guys who can move the puck, skate the puck and are good defensively,” Fleury said. “It’s a real mobile group. That’s how the NHL is going. Everybody has to skate and everybody has to be able to play with the puck. That’s what we have.”

Defensive foundation

Canes defenseman Ron Hainsey, 34, has a more seasoned, critical eye but came away with the same opinion.

“We’ve got some good defensemen coming up and when they’re ready, they’ll be ready to carry the load hopefully for a decade for this franchise,” he said.

Hanifin may be ready now. He has good size at 6-foot-3 and 206 pounds. He can skate. He has a high hockey IQ.

“For a young kid, he’s very in control,” said Canes defenseman John-Michael Liles, who has played 11 NHL seasons. “He seems a bit more mature than 18. For a kid that size and how well he skates, he’s explosive beyond 18 years old, that’s for sure. And it shows.”

Hanifin wears No. 5 for the Hurricanes and Fleury No. 4. Both are left-handed shooters, which means they may not be a defensive tandem in the coming years, but they could be lineup fixtures on the back end, joining Faulk in giving the Canes a firm defensive base.

“You never know how long we could be linked together,” Hanifin said. “We both have a lot of work to do, obviously, to make that step. I think both of us know what we want.”

As a junior-aged player out of the Canadian Hockey League, Fleury must either stay with the Hurricanes this season or be returned to his junior team, the Red Deer Rebels. A year ago, Fleury played a couple of preseason games for the Canes and was sent back to Red Deer.

Fleury, roughly the same size as Hanifin, said he spent much of last season becoming more efficient in the defensive zone, then much of the offseason gaining strength. His mindset for the Canes’ training camp: “I want to make the team.”

A different game

Hainsey was 21 when he first came into the NHL, playing 21 games for the Montreal Canadiens in 2002-03. It was a man’s league and a different, tougher game, with no place for teenagers.

“That was a big component of why you wouldn’t have a 19-year-old defenseman playing,” Hainsey said. “He was going to play against a 36-year-old veteran in front of the net who was going to take liberties with him.”

But now the game is faster, with more emphasis on speed and skating. Florida Panthers defenseman Aaron Ekblad, the No. 1 pick of the 2014 draft, was in the lineup at 18, turned 19 during the season and was the NHL’s rookie of the year.

“The way the game has changed, a 19-year-old with skill can get by on skill, but the kid in Florida was a special kind of player,” Hainsey said.

The NHL salary cap makes younger – and cheaper – players more desirable for teams with huge salaries on the top end. Faulk once fit that lower-price description before he signed a six-year, $29 million contract extension in March 2014 that should make him the Canes’ highest-paid defenseman next season.

Faulk likes to joke that he’s probably as well-known in his hometown of South St. Paul, Minn., as he is in Raleigh. He also shies away from any notion of being one of the “stars” of the team, even though he is.

“I don’t focus on that,” Faulk said. “I just do my thing. The more you get caught up in that the harder it becomes. It’s easier to play when you don’t worry about anything and you’re just thinking about the team.”

Sounds like a veteran, even one who’s just 23.

This story was originally published October 3, 2015 at 2:00 AM with the headline "Carolina Hurricanes build a young defensive foundation."