As Carolina Hurricanes begin Stanley Cup quest, five questions the team needs to answer
Is this the year?
As the puck drops on a new season for the Carolina Hurricanes, so much has been accomplished in the first five years Rod Brind’Amour has been their head coach.
The Canes have been in the Stanley Cup playoffs all five years, twice reaching the Eastern Conference final. They’ve won the Metropolitan Division twice. They’ve set team records for wins in a season, points in a season. They’ve hosted and won an outdoor game. PNC Arena is full on game nights.
“You look on paper and we should be one of the best in the league. I think a lot of people think that,” Canes forward Jordan Martinook said. “I think for the last three or four years our expectation has been. ‘This team should be really good’ and we have been. For us, it’s about managing expectations and continuing with how we’ve done it.”
Is this the year it all comes together, the Hurricanes go all the way and lift the Stanley Cup for the second time in franchise history? The answers start coming Wednesday as the Canes host the Ottawa Senators at PNC Arena on opening night.
Or as captain Jordan Staal put it, when the “real stuff” begins.
Training camp went as expected, Brind’Amour said. The final group was set albeit missing one key player: forward Andrei Svechnikov, who will start the season on the injured non-roster list as he continues to rehab his right knee.
“I think the boys look good, look sharp,” defenseman Brett Pesce said. “We’re all eager to get it going.”
It’s a veteran group, one with forwards Michael Bunting and defensemen Dmitry Orlov and Tony DeAngelo added as free agents. Brendan Lemieux was brought in to add pugnaciousness to the lineup when needed.
“We’ve added some guys who can hopefully help us get us over that hump,” defenseman Brady Skjei said. “I’m excited to see what happens this year. We were a few bounces away last year, but we believe in what we’re doing here and believe the way we play is capable of winning it all.”
Five questions to consider as the season begins:
How to handle the D?
Brind’Amour went with a lineup of 11 forwards and seven defensemen in the final preseason game against Nashville, getting Jalen Chatfield in as the seventh D-man.
That was effective but not ideal, Brind’Amour said, although it could continue in some games while Svechnikov is out — “At least we’ve gotten some looks at it and how it might work,” Brind’Amour said.
Chatfield is a versatile D-man who can play either side and plays with a decided edge to his game.
“We love him. It’s just we’ve got a lot of good ones here. It’s a great problem to have,” Brind’Amour said.
The top six is set: Jaccob Slavin and Brent Burns, Skjei and Pesce, Orlov and DeAngelo. That’s strong.
”I’ve never seen a team this stacked on D,” forward Jesperi Kotkaniemi said. “It’s like a once-in-a-lifetime D corps.”
A 40-goal season for Necas?
Martin Necas believes it’s possible. Not guaranteeing it, just saying it’s possible.
“It’s kind of hard to say, by myself, but I think I can do it,” he said during training camp.
Necas had 28 goals last season, his fourth full year in the NHL, and led the Canes in points with 71. He has the speed, the skill and the shot, can get into the attacking zone quickly and has a big one-timer on the power play.
Kotkaniemi, who centers Necas’ line, was asked if Necas has 40-goal potential.
“Absolutely,” Kotkaniemi said. “When you have a skill set like that, you can create something every night. He’s not far off. He has a lot of good chances and when they all start to go in on a nightly basis, he’ll reach that 40 at some point.”
Is KK the X-factor?
The question continues about Kotkaniemi, known as “KK” to his teammates: can he be a consistently productive second-line center?
“He’s still a young kid who has a lot of room to grow his game,” Brind’Amour said during camp. “There are a lot of areas he can get a little better. I think you started to see that last year. I think he took a big step in his overall game.”
Kotkaniemi, 23, could have Necas and Svechnikov, once healthy, on his wings, making up a line of three former first-round NHL draft picks. That’s speed, power and playmaking wrapped into one package.
Last season, Kotkaniemi had 18 goals and 43 points, playing all 82 games in the regular season.
“I feel like I didn’t play that bad,” he said. “I just couldn’t get points on the board early on and for a while. It gets in your head a little bit and you get a little frustrated, and you sort of push too much to get points, and then it gets even worse.
“After Christmas, I think I was pretty good and had a pretty good streak going. The playoffs didn’t go as anyone wanted. But I had a good summer, got a little stronger. I’ve been feeling good on the ice and feeling confident going into this year.”
Is the Canes’ window closing?
A catchphrase in sports these days is about a team’s “window” of opportunity for winning a championship. It’s when the team’s core is strong, its best players in their primes, the team chemistry strong and the hunger to win is there.
The window closes in the salary-cap era as players get traded because of salary or contract conflicts. It closes when they begin to age or there are major injuries.
Is the Canes’ window about to close on this group? Is there a window? Skjei doesn’t think so.
“The team’s been really good the last few years, there’s no doubt about that,” Skjei said. “We’ve tried to build on that the last couple of years and I think this team will be good for many years to come. I don’t know what a ‘player window’ means but I think this team has too much potential to be good for a long time.”
Stanley Cup champs?
Can the Canes win the Cup this season? Yes. Will they win the Cup? Who can say?
There is no superstar goal-scorer on this team but the Canes have four players who had 20 or more goals last season. They have the deepest defensive corps in the league, including two – Burns and Sklei – who each had 18 goals last season. Their goaltenders are experienced, proven. Their coach could be the best in the league.
Brind’Amour’s system is based on getting the best out of his players each night. It’s based on pressuring the other team into mistakes. It’s about speed in transition. It has proven it works, it wins.
So many factors go into winning a Stanley Cup, tangible and intangible. There are good breaks and bad in the playoffs, big goals and big mistakes. It is a matter of physical and mental toughness. The Hurricanes believe they have it and can do it. It’s time to see if they can.
Goaltender Frederik Andersen may have spoken for the group when he said, “I like our chances.”
This story was originally published October 10, 2023 at 9:40 AM.
