Hurricanes preseason update: Carolina ends exhibition schedule, loses 4-2 to Sabres
Let the hard decision-making begin for the Carolina Hurricanes.
Canes coach Rod Brind’Amour had said during training camp that the team would wait until the preseason schedule ended before making the toughest of the roster decisions, allowing some players added opportunities. The schedule ended Tuesday as the Buffalo Sabres took a 4-2 victory at KeyBank Center in Buffalo, New York.
The Canes won their first four exhibition games with a variety of lineups -- veteran heavy, veteran light, a mixture of prospects and veterans. Many of the key regulars remained in Raleigh for the last preseason game, allowing Brind’Amour and management a last look at some of those battling for the final roster spots.
The Canes trailed 3-0 after a rough first period that had the Sabres’ Vinnie Hinostroza and Tage Thompson score at even strength -- Thompson soon after exiting the penalty box -- and Dylan Cozens shorthanded.
It was 3-0 entering the third before the Canes’ Jamieson Rees and Malte Stromwall scored in a span of 19 seconds. -- Rees unassisted and Stromwall off an Ethan Bear pass. JJ Peterka had an empty-net goal for the Sabres’ final score with 1:20 left.
Pyotr Kochetkov was the Canes’ starting goalie, facing 14 shots in the first, and played all three periods. Craig Anderson was in net for Buffalo.
Canes defenseman Dylan Coghlan left during the game with a lower-body injury. Defenseman Jalen Chatfield had the biggest hit of the game, leading to a fight with Thompson.
Hurricanes 8, Columbus 1
With one fewer preseason game than most other teams after Hurricane Ian wiped out the Canes’ scheduled road game at Tampa Bay last week, Carolina has had to jumble their line combinations a bit to make sure it got everyone enough time for evaluation and preparation. It’s also meant some NHL veteran-heavy lineups during the preseason, leading to some lopsided results.
The smattering of Canes faithful at PNC Arena on Monday saw another such result.
Veteran NHLer Derek Stepan, who played last year with the Hurricanes and is in training camp with the club on a professional tryout contract, scored twice Monday, Martin Necas added two goals and two assists, and Brent Burns added a goal and two assists to power the Hurricanes to an 8-1 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets.
The Canes have now scored 22 goals in four NHL preseason games.
Antti Raanta, who played two periods in a preseason start at Florida last week, was in goal for the whole game Monday. He finished with 25 saves. Freddie Andersen, expected to share the crease with Raanta this season, played the complete game against Florida at PNC Arena on Saturday.
The Canes have one more preseason game, a road contest at Buffalo on Tuesday night. Carolina opens the regular season at home on Wednesday, Oct. 12 against the Blue Jackets.
Here are a few things we observed at Monday’s game:
▪ Powerful start: Again with the caveat that it’s still the preseason, early returns on the Hurricanes’ power play have been good. Really good.
Through four preseason games, the Canes are 7-for-17 with an extra skater, a 41.2% success rate, including a 2-for-4 effort on Monday against the Blue Jackets.
Monday’s success on the power play was encouraging for a couple of reasons. First, it marked the first goal of the preseason for young Jesperi Kotkaniemi. Already a four-year NHL veteran, the 22-year-old center has lofty expectations this season after the team signed him to an 8-year, $38,560,000 contract in the offseason, one year after signing the former third-overall pick to an offer sheet to pry him away from Montreal.
With the departure of Vincent Trocheck to the New York Rangers, Kotkaniemi is expected to see elevated minutes at center this season. Monday, he saw extra time with the extra skater, and it paid off. He snapped a laser over starter Danil Tarasov’s glove midway through the first period to even the score at one, adding to his two power-play assists from earlier in the preseason.
The second encouraging note about the power play came at the blue line. Brent Burns will take over as the de facto top power-play quarterback this season, and the veteran NHL defender looked good for the second game in a row Monday, earning an assist on the Kotkaniemi goal and then a goal of his own on a second-period power play.
On Saturday against Florida, Burns netted a pair of goals.
▪ Speed demons: For any fault people have found with Martin Necas’ game in his time with the Hurricanes’ organization — and there’s been plenty of reason for it — one things that’s never really been in question is his raw speed.
He showed that off in spades Monday night. With the Canes already ahead by three, Necas and Kotkaniemi simultaneously chased down a loose puck skittering through the center zone toward Columbus keeper Jet Greaves. Both Necas and Kotkaniemi outraced a pair of Blue Jackets defenders and turned the innocuous-looking rush into a scoring chance — and a goal.
Necas and Kotkaniemi followed that up with an assist each on a Brady Skjei goal to push the Canes’ advantage to 6-1.
And, for good measure, Necas added a second goal. Again using his speed to outmaneuver a defender, Necas broke to the right post on an odd-man rush late in the third period and tapped home a feed from Ryan Dzingel to push the game’s final margin to 8-1.
▪ What’s old is new again: Given the depth the Hurricanes have at every position, veteran center Derek Stepan knows if he makes the final roster coming off his professional tryout, he’ll have earned it.
He’s taken some solid steps forward during the Canes’ preseason games, including Monday. With time ticking down in the first period, Stepan got dirty in front of the cage and redirected Jaccob Slavin’s shot from the left point past Tarasov for the team’s third goal of the game, and his second of the preseason.
Stepan added another early in the third period on a turn-around wrist shot from the left circle, and finished with an assist in the final minutes of the game.
Stepan, who skated for the Canes a year ago, is among a handful of veterans the Hurricanes could stack on this year’s roster to help provide stability to an otherwise young core. Among Stepan (12 years, 817 games), Paul Stastny (17, 1072), Max Pacioretty (14, 850) and Brent Burns (18, 1251) alone, the Canes have added 61 years and 3,990 games of NHL experience to the locker room.
Pacioretty is on the shelf recovering from a freak Achilles tendon injury, and Stepan is still not officially on the roster, but just having them around is having a measurable impact.
Canes sign Russian defender
The Hurricanes continued to address their depth Monday while restocking the two-time defending Calder Cup champion Chicago Wolves with top talent.
In addition to sending two defensive prospects — William Lagesson and Ronan Seeley — to the Wolves, the Canes announced Monday they’ve signed Russian defenseman Grigorii Dronov to a one-year, two-way contract. Dronov had been skating with the Hurricanes on a professional tryout contract (PTO).
The young Russian’s new deal will pay him $770,000 at the NHL level and $70,000 at the AHL level. Dronov has been assigned to Chicago.
“Grigorii possesses a nice blend of skill and physicality, which stood out to us in camp,” Hurricanes President and GM Don Waddell said. “He is a young but experienced player coming off an impressive postseason in the KHL, and we’re excited to see how he performs in North America.”
Dronov, 24, played in the prospects showcase the Canes hosted, and attended training camp while on his PTO contract.
He played six games with Metallurg Magnitogorsk of the KHL last season, tallying one assist. The 6-foot-3, 201-pound defenseman then ranked second in playoff scoring among all KHL blueliners, adding 14 points (5g, 9a) in 24 playoff games as Metallurg advanced to the Gagarin Cup Final. Dronov has posted 39 points (7g, 32a) in 189 career KHL games from 2016-21, all with Metallurg.
Hurricanes power past Panthers
Many of the Carolina Hurricanes’ veterans saw regular action Saturday against the Florida Panthers in the team’s third preseason game of 2022, but unquestionably the busiest player on the PNC Arena ice was Florida goalie Spencer Knight.
The young keeper, who just recently signed a 3-year, $13.5 million contract extension with the Panthers, was on the receiving end of 47 Carolina shots Saturday in a 4-3 Hurricanes win.
Here are a few takeaways from Saturday’s tilt:
▪ Welcome to Raleigh, Brent Burns: A pair of goals from the Hurricanes’ expected power-play quarterback will do well to ingratiate the NHL veteran to his new fan base. That neither of the goals game on the power play is likely of little consequence..
Burns’ first strike of the afternoon came with the teams skating 4-on-4 in the first period after an ill-advise Jesperi Kotkaniemi penalty wiped out a power play chance.
Shortly after the initial faceoff at 4-on-4, Burns crisscrossed with forward Teuvo Teravainen at the top of the zone, slid to the top of the right circle and fired a wrist shot toward the cage. Knight appeared to lose sight of the puck through a multiple-layer screen in front and the puck found its way into the back of the cage to put the Canes on top, 1-0.
In the third, Burns was pinching in deep along the right wall, collected the puck deep in the offensive corner and whipped it toward the net from a sharp angle. It caromed off Knight and slipped short-side into the net to put the Canes on top, 4-3.
Burns, a six-time NHL All-Star defender and two-time Norris Trophy finalist — he won in 2017 — is expected to quarterback the Canes’ power play, replacing Tony DeAngelo in that role after the latter departed in the offseason for Philadelphia. Burns spent the first six years of his career with the Minnesota Wild before playing the past 11 seasons with the San Jose Sharks.
▪ Andrei Svechnikov’s strong start: There’s no denying Svechnikov’s talent, and the young winger has made quite an impression on the Hurricanes and their fans since being drafted second overall by the Canes in 2018. He’s been among the team leaders in almost every major offensive category, and for the past couple of seasons, he’s been on the precipice of true NHL stardom.
The hitch seems to be his postseason production, and his penchant for problematic penalties.
Yes, it’s still preseason. And yes, it’s a small sample size against several players who may or may not make other clubs’ NHL rosters. But that Svechnikov has scored twice already in two games, totaled four points and eight shots on net, all while taking no penalties, is an encouraging sign for the Russian winger.
He also wowed the crowd late in the third period Saturday with a slick dangle that resulted in the team’s 47th (and final) shot on net, slipping the puck between his legs before kicking it back to his forehand for a quick shot.
▪ Andersen gets the nod: In the team’s previous preseason game, veteran goalie Antti Raanta saw two periods of action against the Florida Panthers before ceding his crease to Zach Sawchenko for the third period.
Saturday afternoon, it was Freddie Andersen’s turn for some preseason playing time. The Canes’ workhorse last season during the regular season before a late-season injury sidelined him, Andersen is playing with a clean bill of health coming into the 2022-23 campaign.
The thinking is that he and Raanta will split time a bit more evenly this season.
There was no splitting time Saturday. Andersen played the complete game against the Panthers, allowing three goals on 10 shots while the defense played well in front of him in limiting Florida’s opportunities.
Canes sign de Haan
The Hurricanes’ preseason roster building — and salary cap juggling — continued Saturday. Before the team’s home preseason game against the Florida Panthers, the Canes announced they have signed defenseman Calvin de Haan, who’d previously played for the team, to a one-year contract worth $850,000.
“We obviously knew Calvin from his previous time in Carolina,” Hurricanes GM Don Waddell said in a news release. “We like what we’ve seen from him in camp and saw this as an opportunity to increase our depth on the back end.”
De Haan previously played for the Hurricanes in 2018-19, appearing in 74 regular-season games while scoring a goal and adding 13 assists. De Haan also appeared in 12 playoff games that season — the team’s first of four consecutive playoff appearances — and contributed one goal in the postseason, as well.
The move adds depth to the Canes’ blue line, which boasts one of the best top-fours in the league with Jaccob Slavin, Brett Pesce, Brady Skjei and the newly acquired Brent Burns. But the remaining three or four defensive positions were very much up for grabs. Signing de Haan appears to indicate one of those positions is sewn up for the Canes.
Returning defender Ethan Bear is among those in consideration for the final position or two, along with Jalen Chatfield, who played most of last season with the Chicago Wolves of the AHL.
The Canes also acquired dependable defender Dylan Coghlan in the trade with Vegas that also brought in injured veteran forward Max Pacioretty, making the blue line a crowded spot this preseason.
Hurricanes notch 5-2 road win at Florida
Carolina Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour decided to go with younger prospects and players fighting for roster spots Thursday in the Canes’ second preseason game.
The Florida Panthers, in turn, went more of a more veteran lineup that included former Canes captain Eric Staal.
Edge, Panthers?
Not this night. The Canes scored twice on the power play and added another goal shorthanded in notching a 5-2 victory.
“Obviously with our lineup we were missing some pretty big pieces,” Brind’Amour said after the game. “But the guys who were in there really competed hard. I know it’s just a preseason game, but that’s the only way you’d have a chance to win against a team like that.
“I thought overall it was just a great effort, which is what you want to see this time of year when you’re tying to build something, and with new guys.”
One of the Canes veterans Wednesday was goalie Antti Raanta. In net for the first time since a Game 7 playoff loss to the New York Rangers, he had several quality stops among his 20 saves in the first two periods before being replaced by Zach Sawchenko in the third.
The Canes topped Tampa Bay 5-1 on Tuesday in their preseason opener at PNC Arena with many of their regulars playing against a young Lightning lineup, and with a predictable result. Carolina scored three times on the power play and rolled to an easy win.
Asked Thursday morning if that might be the case in the Canes’ second game, that their prospects might be overmatched against Florida’s older lineup on the road, Brind’Amour said: ”If it doesn’t, if it works in our favor, then someone is playing well, someone’s standing out.”
Two of the Canes’ young forwards scored — Justin Robidas at even strength and Vasily Ponomarev on the power play.
Their goals in the second period came after Stefan Noesen had given the Canes a 1-0 lead with a power-goal goal and Derek Stepan had scored shorthanded to make it 2-0 in the first.
Defenseman Dylan Coghlan, who had three assists in the first preseason game, assisted on Noesen’s goal, again unloading a big shot from the point. He also blocked a game-high five shots.
Jack Drury tipped in the rebound of a Calvin de Haan shot past goalie Sergei Bobrovsky in the third to push the Canes’ lead to 5-1.
Sam Bennett scored for the Panthers in the second as Gustav Forsling and Eetu Luostarinen, two former Canes, had assists. Defenseman Brandon Montour scored in the third for Florida against Sawchenko.
Canes defenseman Ethan Bear and the Panthers’ Matthew Tkachuk mixed it up briefly in the third,
The Hurricanes and Panthers will play again Saturday in a 1 p.m. game at PNC Arena. Defensemen Brent Burns and Jaccob Slavin, who sat out the first two preseason games, should get their first game action.
This story was originally published September 29, 2022 at 9:55 PM.
