With two goals and a sly smirk, the Canes’ Andrei Svechnikov storms into a new season
He grinned afterward, a sly smirk that left no secret about how close he came. Andrei Svechnikov nearly pulled it off, given time and space behind the opposing net to cradle the puck on the blade of his stick and try for yet another of his lacrosse goals.
It would have, on opening night, brought down a house already more than ready to be brought down, a house full for the first time in 20 months. The Carolina Hurricanes were on their way to a big win, and a third lacrosse goal from Svechnikov would have lit the fuse on utter mayhem.
The New York Islanders’ Adam Pelech was late to sniff it out but not too late, and Svechnikov had to settle for an empty-net goal later to seal a 6-3 win, his second of the night. He opened and closed the scoring for the Hurricanes, and whatever weight the $7.75 million man carried around with him last season seemed to be entirely off his shoulders to start this one.
“It was one moment in the second period I was behind the net and I was thinking to try it,” Svechnikov said. “I went to the locker room like, ‘Why didn’t you try it? Come on.’ Third period was a good chance and I tried it. I was too short. Got to go a little bit farther. And then I didn’t have lots of time as well. Got to do that faster, a little bit.”
Hurricanes captain Jordan Staal predicted a few weeks ago that Svechnikov, freed of the uncertainty of his contract negotiations would “terrorize the league,” and he certainly terrorized the Islanders on Thursday. This was a virtuoso performance from a forward who didn’t come close to scratching the surface of his potential last season, but was the best player on the ice to start this one, on a night when there was plenty of competition among his teammates.
Now, to be clear, Svechnikov got off to a good start last year, with three goals in the first three games before things went south, but there was no better way to leave all of the rest of it behind than this active, involved performance that showcased his considerable talents.
“He was pretty dominant tonight,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “It seemed like he had the puck every time he was on the ice, down low. He had a really good game. He had one penalty, still got to get that out of him, but overall he was really good.”
The penalty was in the neutral zone, at least, it was pointed out to Brind’Amour.
“Yeah, and it wasn’t a stick infraction. He was just trying to finish his check.”
Progress. On many fronts.
The empty-net goal padded his stats, but on a night when 12 different Hurricanes players recorded at least a point, Svechnikov was involved in the two biggest goals of the night: He scored the opener in front of the net, tipping Teuvo Teravainen’s shot past Ilya Sorokin, and he facilitated the third-period power-play goal that put the game away.
Svechnikov had a slick cross-ice pass to Teuvo Teravainen that opened the door for Teravainen and Tony DeAngelo to play catch and open up Teravainen to rip a one-timer from the right circle to make it 5-3.
But it was the goal he didn’t score that got everyone’s attention.
“You never know,” said Nino Niederreiter, who scored an impressive goal of his own, dragging Zdeno Chara to the net. “When he’s behind the net he does whatever he wants to do. It almost went in. Would have been a great goal. We know what he’s capable of doing and he’s a terrific player. It’s a matter of time that he scores another one like that.”
Only Svechnikov knows just how much the contract weighed on him last season, and only Svechnikov knows how much weight is off his shoulders now. But it’s still something everyone sort of nods at, without actually coming out and saying it, whether it’s Brind’Amour or Staal or even Svechnikov.
“I don’t try to think about that,” Svechnikov said. “I feel like when you don’t have a contract, yeah, you’ve got a little bit of pressure, but it doesn’t matter for me. I would work hard every day. I was raised like that.”
Either way, it’s all in the past now. There’s always a glow of the future around Svechnikov, an aura that his best days are still ahead of him, and no one really can say just how good those days will be because, in this moment, his potential remains almost limitless.
There was something of the irrepressible kid who so captivated fans as an electrifying and unpredictable rookie in that smirk, only from an older and more confident player who seems to know his best days truly stretch out before him, and not far off at that.
This story was originally published October 15, 2021 at 5:25 AM.
