Carolina Hurricanes are ready to see how good they are in a new season
The Carolina Hurricanes are throwing a party Thursday. Big one. A lot of tickets sold.
The Montreal Canadiens want no part of the party scene at PNC Arena. But the Habs will be in the middle of it all, the opening-night opponent as the Canes begin their 2019-20 NHL season with an excitement level unmatched in a decade.
As Canes forward Jordan Martinook put it, “It’s go time.”
The parking lots will be jammed, just as they were in April and May in the Stanley Cup playoffs. They’ll roll out Hamilton the Pig again. Storm Brew, the new Canes beer, should be consumed. Martinook said his dad, Mark, will be among the those tailgating and throwing a “Marty Party” of his own before the Canes take the ice for the business end of the night.
”I’m excited that the games count for real,” Canes coach Rod Brind’Amour said at his Wednesday media availability. “Every detail matters and it has a consequence, right? So that’s exciting, to see what we’re about.”
The Canes have a new captain. Justin Williams, the consummate captain last season, is in semi-retirement and center Jordan Staal now wears the “C” and is ready to lead.
“We’re excited to get going, try to get in the mix and win some games,” Staal said in a media interview Wednesday, “Every year is a new challenge, every year it’s difficult to win games. In an 82-game season there’s going to be some ups and downs, and it’s how we react in those ups and downs that will help us get where we want to be.”
Since the franchise moved to North Carolina in 1997, only once have the Canes reached the playoffs in consecutive seasons -- 2000-01 and 2001-02. They’ve won a Stanley Cup, been to another Stanley Cup final and reached the Eastern Conference finals four times but just once had back-to-back playoff teams.
Are they good enough to back this season? The playoffs are where they want to be.
“I think we’re in great shape,” Brind’Amour said. “We’ve got a lot of new faces. I think the key is getting all those guys onboard and up to speed with how we do things and ready to play their (butts) off.”
That Sebastian Aho offer scare
Most are aware that the Canadiens were the team that stirred up the NHL -- and Canes owner Tom Dundon -- on July 1 with their offer sheet to Carolina center Sebastian Aho. Dundon, a Dallas billionaire, quickly matched that offer sheet although coming away irritated with what he viewed as a waste of time by the Canadiens and their general manager, Marc Bergevin.
Dundon said he wasn’t angry at Aho, although Aho’s agent, Gerry Johannson, is a different matter. Aho, for his part, said Thursday’s game against Montreal represents only the chance to begin a new Canes season with a victory.
“It’s the home opener,” Aho said Wednesday.
Nothing extra, given the drama in July?
“The home opener.”
Dundon revels in the victories and suffers through the losses. He also made the Canes a “cap team” this year -- their opening-night payroll is $80 million and the NHL salary cap $81.5 million, according to CapFriendly.com, which tracks player salaries.
With a higher payroll often come higher expectations. The Canes, in their first playoff appearance since 2009, reached the Eastern Conference finals last season before being swept by the Boston Bruins. They finished Brind’Amour’s first season as a head coach with 99 points, going 46-29-7. What now?
“From a talent perspective we have enough talent to be a very competitive team, and I’m confident in the character and the effort and the coaching,” Dundon said in an N&O interview. “What is difficult to quantify is there’s a lot of good teams and it’s very close. Sometimes it’s luck and sometimes injuries. But if things go according to the talent and effort level, then I think we’ll be pretty successful.”
Last season’s wild card spot
It was close last season. The Canadiens, in the end, were the team left outside looking in. The Canes, Habs and Columbus Blue Jackets took it to the wire to decide the two wild-card playoff spots in the East and the Canadiens were left without a seat at the table.
“It’s going to be a grind right from the start,” Brind’Amour said. “Montreal, for me, was one of those teams that should have been in the playoffs. They gave us probably the toughest games all year. When I look back on them, I didn’t feel great about our games after playing them. And they haven’t changed much and have gotten better, too.”
Two of the storylines in Thursday’s game: Habs rookie defenseman Cale Fleury, the younger brother of the Canes’ Haydn Fleury, will be making his NHL debut. So will Canadiens forward Nick Suzuki, whose younger brother, Ryan, was the Canes’ first-round draft pick this year and is playing for the Barrie Colts of the Ontario Hockey League.
The Canes’ final preseason game Sunday against the Washington Capitals had a regular-season, even a playoff feel to it. It was intense, heated words and hard hits were exchanged, entertaining a full house at PNC Arena even though the Canes lost 4-3.
But this is opening-night. “You can tell the excitement level is up in the locker room and there’s a lot of life on the ice,” Aho said.
Brind’Amour feels it, too.
“We want to get the season started right,” he said. “Now we’ve got to roll the dice and see what we’ve got.”
Canadiens at Hurricanes
When: 7 p.m., Thursday
Where: PNC Arena, Raleigh
Watch: FS-CR
Listen: WCMC-99.9
This story was originally published October 3, 2019 at 5:00 AM.
