RALEIGH — It’s finally here, the start of the 2022-23 hockey season for the Carolina Hurricanes. The team opens at home on Wednesday against the visiting Blue Jackets before hitting the road for five games over nearly two weeks.
Tough decisions
Coach Rod Brind’Amour has a full 23-man roster to start the season — 13 forwards, eight defensemen and two goalies — which means there will be decisions to be made each game night.
“It’s never easy for them, but everyone gets it,” he said of having three healthy extras on opening night. “We’re gonna need everyone at some point, so you gotta have that depth, and we’re fortunate to have that.”
For Wednesday, it looks like defensemen Ethan Bear and Dylan Coghlan will be in the press box, joined by forward Stefan Noesen.
Here are the lines from the morning skate:
Teravainen — Aho — Jarvis
Svechnikov — Kotkaniemi — Necas
Stastny — Staal — Fast
Martinook — Stepan — Kase
Slavin — Burns
Skjei — Pesce
de Haan — Chatfield
Andersen
Raanta
Opening night butterflies
Every first game brings some excitement and butterflies.
“The first game of preseason, first thing the regular season, you’ve been waiting so long,” newcomer Paul Stastny, starting his 17th season, said Wednesday morning. “So the build-up kind of happens and then once you get that first shift out of the way, first period, and you just get more and more comfortable every second that passes.”
Stastny, by the way, had an opening night hat trick back in 2007 with Colorado in his second NHL season.
Goalie Frederik Andersen, who is about even-keeled as they come, admitted opening night always feels a little different.
“There’s always that jitters. … I think sometimes maybe the excitement is being mistaken for nerves,” he said. “We’re all working towards this day for now, and that’s what you look forward to all summer, to get back in a real game, game action. So that’s the excitement.”
Mr. Andersen
Andersen will get the start in net. He comes off a season in which he was 35-14-3 with a .922 save percentage and 2.17 goals-against average, finished fourth in Vezina Trophy voting and helped Carolina win the Jennings Trophy for allowing the fewest goals. That silenced many who doubted he could carry the load in Raleigh after losing his starting job in Toronto the year before.
“It was nice to prove I still had something left,” he said following Tuesday’s practice. “It’s always tough to say, but I was happy to get a chance on a really good team last year, and again it looks like we have another really good team.”
Unfortunately, he was injured in the regular season and missed the postseason, meaning there’s unfinished business as he enters the final year of his two-year contract. It starts with a sold-out PNC Arena that is sure to be loud.
“It over-delivered my expectations,” Andersen said of the crowd last season at PNC Arena.
Jackets required
Carolina will face the new-look Blue Jackets in their opener. The biggest addition is Johnny Gaudreau, who shocked the league by signing a mega-deal worth $68.25 million over seven years with Columbus in the offseason.
The 29-year-old winger picked a good time to have a career year, scoring 40 goals and totaling 115 points with the Flames last season.
Gaudreau will be without linemates Elias Lindholm (still in Calgary) and Matthew Tkachuk (traded to Florida) but will have another dangerous running mate in Patrik Laine with his 176 goals in 407 career regular season games. Boone Jenner will center the top line.
There’s plenty of top-end talent — Zach Werenski is an offensive weapon on defense, and 21-year-old Yegor Chinakhov led the NHL with six preseason goals — but the Blue Jackets will need to prove they can keep the puck out of their own net and get contributions down the lineup.
One familiar face we’ll be seeing tonight: Jake Bean, who returns to Raleigh to play his fourth career game against the team that drafted him 13th overall in 2016. He had two assists in his one game at PNC Arena last year, helping Columbus to a 6-0 win.
Rookie in goal
Columbus goalie of the future Daniil Tarasov will start in net after No. 1 Elvis Merzlikins was ruled out of the opener with an illness.
It will be the fifth career appearance for the 23-year-old Russian, and one of those came in relief of Merzlikins last season against the Hurricanes. He stopped 31 of 33 shots in what wound up a 7-4 Carolina win on New Year’s Day in Columbus.
Tarasov — who was once a teammate of Andrei Svechnikov on Russia’s World Junior Under-18 team — also started the Blue Jackets’ preseason game in Raleigh, allowing three goals in nearly 24 minutes before being relieved by Jet Greaves in an 8-1 thumping.
Greaves was recalled Wednesday to back up Tarasov with Merzlikins unavailable, leading to 2021 fifth overall pick Kent Johnson being assigned to the AHL to make room.
