No longer ‘up-and-coming,’ Hurricanes top Senators with the authority of an NHL bully
The guys who have really been around, who have risen from close to the bottom, Jordan Staal and Sebastian Aho and Jaccob Slavin and Brett Pesce, needed only to look at the other bench as the new season began Wednesday to see what they once were, and be reminded of what they have become.
The Ottawa Senators are more or less who the Carolina Hurricanes used to be, and not all that long ago: Young, raw, talented, exciting, their best years not far ahead — a team on the cusp, in desperate search of a reliable goaltender. The Hurricanes, back then, used to get their dreams smashed by veteran teams that had the savvy and edge they lacked at that time.
Wednesday, the skate was on the other foot. The Hurricanes are the bully now.
They cruelly crushed the hopes of the Senators — twice — with the same casual impudence they used to endure. When the game was in the balance, after they let their intensity slip, they produced a smothering attack that left the visitors wondering what just happened, finding all the flaws in Joonas Korpisalo’s game in a 5-3 win.
They’ve always had that capability. Now they have the hard-earned ability to do it on command, when it matters most. Nothing’s new to them. This is who they are now.
Like the frog in the pot of boiling water, it might be hard for some fans to recognize that the Hurricanes aren’t those young guns anymore, a bunch of fresh-faced promising up-and-comers. They’re one of the oldest teams in the league, no longer the nice guys everyone’s rooting for, but the oppressor everyone wants to see get his comeuppance. Nobody wins betting on the favorite except the house.
They have become the final boss. They even were, really, last year, as the postseason evolved. But this year they’re going about it with bad intentions. Just look at the new guys.
Michael Bunting, who managed to pick up an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty in a preseason game, isn’t here to make friends. He’s here to score goals and irritate people. He did the first on his Carolina debut, and should have drawn a penalty when Mark Kastelic speared him in the groin.
Dmitri Orlov’s game is leathery, equal parts smooth and tough, sending Mathieu Joseph soaring through the air with a difficult and spectacular hip check. Brendan Lemieux sat out Wednesday, but he’ll get a look when the Hurricanes hit the road, and being a pest is in his DNA. Tony DeAngelo, comma.
And the old guys, who are all still here? They’re old now. Marty Necas’ baby face is gone, replaced by a head the shape of a concrete block. Aho’s chin is nicked with scars. Seth Jarvis went home for the summer a kid and came back a ball of muscle. Frederik Andersen and Antti Raanta came back for what might their final kicks at the Cup. And Brent Burns and Staal are … not getting any younger. They all wear the hard miles of the NHL on their faces, the high hits in the corners and errant pucks and late nights of long season after long season.
With that comes all the anger of the way things ended, the stifled fury of watching the Florida Panthers get smoked by the Vegas Golden Knights in the Stanley Cup finals. Necas watched one game of that series, on the plane home to Czechia. That was all he could stomach. He carries that memory with him, like luggage, as do his teammates.
That can fuel them through this very long regular season, which isn’t quite a given for a team like the Hurricanes but will feel that way at times. They were once like the Senators, when every point mattered in a desperate quest to make the postseason, in a rush to make the future become the present.
“They’re a really fast team,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “They were getting up and down the ice. They’re going to be a team to reckon with.”
The Hurricanes have become something very different now. Something to be feared. Something to be endured. Something to truly be reckoned with.
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This story was originally published October 11, 2023 at 10:06 PM.
