As high as expectations were for his return, Justin WIlliams exceeded them
Justin Williams was mere inches away from a hat trick of mere feet. There’s a lot to be said for being in the right place at the right time, especially when you have a knack for it.
For the Carolina Hurricanes, Williams is in the right place (back on the ice) at the right time (right when they needed a boost). It’s not just that he scored the shootout winner in his return Sunday and two goals — and nearly a third — in a 4-1 win over the Winnipeg Jets on Tuesday.
With Dougie Hamilton out for the foreseeable future, losers of three straight, the Hurricanes needed some kind of lift heading into the All-Star break. Williams, his fabled dramatic timing as acute as ever, has provided it.
It’s hard to imagine his belated return to the NHL getting off to much of a better start than this. Williams was going to get a hero’s welcome anyway, even if he struggled to get his legs back, but he’s actually earned it. As high as expectations were, maybe even unfairly so, he’s managed to exceed them.
“I don’t want to say I had low expectations, but I think a lot of myself and I worked hard,” Williams said. “As I said before the first game, just trust myself, know you’re a good player, you’ve played a bunch of these games. Just go out and do it.”
Williams scored his first on a power-play tap-in thanks to a priority-mail delivery from Teuvo Teravainen, his second a few seconds after a power play expired thanks to an equally slick delivery from Andrei Svechnikov. Instantly, Williams was a goal-per-game player.
And he would have had a hat trick courtesy of Martin Necas in almost exactly the same spot on the back door but the pass caught him in the skates, only inches awry. It would have been a hat trick of a collective distance of about 6 feet.
“Things just kind of ended up on my stick,” Williams said. “I was the beneficiary of a couple really great passes. I just had my stick on the ice. I’m feeling comfortable. I’m feeling better than I did last game. I hope to feel better the next game.”
Necas had already provided the highlight of the night on the opening goal, set loose by Ryan Dzingel on the right wing a step ahead of Neal Pionk, who Necas proceeded to turn inside out on his way to the net. Pionk, victimzed on Svechnikov’s lacrosse goal in Winnipeg, has had a front-row seat for some amazing Hurricanes highlights this season.
The flip side to Williams going in is someone else coming out. It was Jordan Martinook on Sunday. It was Erik Haula on Tuesday, unthinkable earlier in the season but understandable after he let Anders Lee get to the net for the game-tying goal in the final minute Sunday. That’s a dynamic Martinook and Haula and several others are going to have to accept as long as there are 13 healthy forwards.
The play of everyone else fighting to stay in the lineup offers solid justification for carrying 13 rather than saving cap room with 12 and relying on last-minute call-ups from Charlotte; the competition leaves no margin for error, as Haula found out Tuesday.
“They’re making it tough on me, and that’s what’s good,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “I don’t want it to be an easy decision. When I have 13 forwards that I want to play, can’t do it. You’ll see different guys going in and out all the time, as long as we’re healthy.”
Of course, that presumes Williams plays well enough to justify his spot in the lineup, something that was not exactly guaranteed during his three months off but does not appear to be an issue now.
He’s no longer the captain, but at least in the early returns, he’s still the same player he was. Williams hasn’t lost a step. He still knows where he’s going. He still gets the same 10 days between games as everyone else.
“Breaks are good for everybody,” WIlliams said. “Even guys who have only played two games.”
This story was originally published January 21, 2020 at 10:32 PM.
