Edmundson, Faulk set for emotional game as Canes face Blues
Joel Edmundson set up plans for Monday night, taking a number of St. Louis Blues players to one of his favorite eateries.
Justin Faulk also was planning on a nice dinner, with several Carolina Hurricanes players invited to his house outside St. Louis.
For the two defensemen, the game Tuesday between the Canes and Blues will be decidedly different — both facing former teammates for the first time — and likely charged with emotion. And especially so for the Canes’ Edmundson, who will be presented a Stanley Cup championship ring by the Blues in a pregame ceremony at the Enterprise Center.
Faulk was drafted by the Hurricanes and played eight seasons with Carolina, helping lift the Canes back into the Stanley Cup playoffs last season. Edmundson was drafted by St. Louis and was a part of the astounding worst-to-first story with the Blues in 2018-19, one that ended with the lifting of the Cup.
“It may sound cliche-ish but it was a dream come true,” Edmundson said Monday.
The business of hockey can be fickle, complicated. Unable to agree on a contract extension with the Canes, Faulk was dealt Sept. 24 to St. Louis and signed a seven-year, $45.5 million contract extension with the Blues. In return, Edmundson headed to Carolina, which also received offensive prospect Dominik Bokk in the deal.
Faulk is a former NHL All-Star and U.S. Olympian who served as a co-captain and alternate captain with the Canes. The guy called “Faulker” was one of the bigger personalities in the locker room and a rugged player on the ice with a booming shot.
“He was a huge part of what we were able to accomplish last year,” Canes coach Rod Brind’Amour said Monday. “He was a big part of this franchise for a long time. I always thought he came to play. He was a good player for us. He’ll always have a good place certainly in my memory.”
Faulk, in an interview Monday, said he’s proud of being a part of the franchise’s resurgence last season. In his eighth NHL season he finally was able to experience playoff hockey, but more so bring it back to Raleigh and the Triangle for the first time since 2009.
“As brutal as it was at some times in all those (non-playoff) seasons, I was pretty happy to see it through where we did get back in the playoffs,” he said. “Let Raleigh and the fans enjoy it, kind of get them bought back in and give them something to be proud of, as well.
“That was definitely nice. It was a fun year and I think we had a great group of guys. The group was probably as blue-collar as they come. Just a good group of guys and everyone was down-to-earth. And, again, it was good to give that success back to the community and show that we could play some good hockey.”
Faulk, 27, wore No. 27 for the Canes. Blues captain Alex Pietrangelo has that number, so Faulk flipped it and wears No. 72 — the number and blue jersey appearing odd given Faulk’s long run in red and white and No. 27.
Faulk, a right-handed shooting D-man, scored a career-high 17 goals for the Canes in 2016-17 and had 48 goals in a three-season span. His offensive numbers have been down in his first season with St. Louis — he has four goals and nine assists, the same numbers that Edmundson, more of a “defensive” defenseman, has put up for the Canes.
“I’d say I’m in a little bit of a different position here,” Faulk said. “Not that there’s not a lot of depth in Carolina but obviously there’s a lot of depth here, as well, on the back end. With Pietrangelo, we all know how good a player he is, and we have (Colton) Parayko on the right side, too. We’ve got a pretty full right side. We have players who can step into any role and once in a while it gets rotated around. But it’s been pretty good.”
Edmundson, 26, said no sooner than the trade was completed, he checked to see when the Canes and Blues would be playing, especially in St. Louis. The wait was a long one but he said his parents, Bob and Lois, were flying in from Brandon, Manitoba, to be on hand for the presentation of the ring and the game.
“It’s going to be weird playing in my old rink against a bunch of my buddies but I’m excited to get there,” Edmundson said in an interview Monday. “Those fans were good to me in my four years there, so it will be nice to play in front of them again and see everyone in the organization that treated me well.
“There are teammates there that will be life-long friends. Some of my best friends are still on the team.”
Once in last place in the league last season, the Blues surged once the calendar flipped to 2019, taking them into the playoffs, to the Stanley Cup final against the Boston Bruins and then to a seven-game series win that gave St. Louis its first Stanley Cup title.
Rookie goaltender Jordan Binnington, given a chance to play, gave the Blues quality start after quality start. The Blues changed head coaches, bringing in Craig Berube to replace Mike Yeo. It all came together for St. Louis.
“Binnington took control and at the same time we got the new coach, too,” Edmundson said. “He’s an intense guy and his intensity was really contagious.”
The Blues adopted “Gloria” as their victory song, which Edmundson likened to the Canes’ Storm Surge at PNC Arena after home-ice wins. Victory begat victory begat victory..
“A lot of things went into it,” Edmundson said. “There definitely were some dark days in the first half of the year. Everybody thought they were going to get traded at one point, then we went on an 11-game win streak and no one looked back.”
That was last season. The Blues (31-14-8), despite hitting a 1-4-1 rough patch in their last six games, have a nice lead in the Central Division this year. The Canes (30-19-3), after a 4-3 shootout win Sunday over the Vancouver Canucks, were one point out of playoff position in the Eastern Conference through Monday’s games.
The Canes have lost defenseman Dougie Hamilton to a broken fibula — “That’s really tough because everybody knows what kind of season he was having,” Faulk said — but have had former captain Justin Williams rejoin the team at age 38 and play his first four games.
“It should be fun competing against the guys you competed with for so long,” Faulk said.
Faulk chuckled when told Williams has two game-deciding shootout goals and a two-goal game since his return.
“Oh, I think I’ll end up seeing him here tonight,” Faulk said of the get-together at his house.
For Faulk and Edmundson, there’s some catching up to do.
