The Hurricanes host the Dallas Stars on Monday night in a matchup of two of the NHL’s best teams.
1. First, the bad news for the Hurricanes: Carolina had to recall Yaniv Perets from AHL Chicago due to the injury Pyotr Kochetkov suffered Saturday in Columbus.
Pyotr Kochetkov left the game in OT after getting clipped in the head. pic.twitter.com/8z9Nm1hOpq
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) November 24, 2024
“He’s in that protocol and then we’ll see,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said, referencing that Kochetkov is in the concussion protocol. “You see some guys bounce back really quick, and some guys take longer. So hopefully it’s the bounce-back variety.”
The slightly better news is that while Kochetkov did not take part in Monday’s morning skate, he was at Lenovo Center and with the team.
Spencer Martin will start against the visiting Stars. He’s faced them once in his career, a 5-2 loss Nov. 9, 2023, when he was with Columbus. Martin is 1-2-1 with an .870 save percentage, 3.21 goals-against average and one shutout in five appearances for Carolina this season.
I asked Brind’Amour if he felt the team needed to add reinforcements in goal — Perets has faced just 64 shots above the ECHL level in his pro career — but the coach shifted that decision to GM Eric Tulsky.
“It’s not really a question for me,” Brind’Amour said. “We’re fortunate that we’ve had Spencer here. I think I feel good about that. And obviously after that, we’re not sure because we’ve never had any one of these young guys play yet, really. So, like I said, hopefully Kooch isn’t too long.”
2. The Hurricanes’ other news is that Seth Jarvis is off injured reserve and will be back in the lineup against Dallas.
Jarvis last played Nov. 9 in Colorado and has missed the Hurricanes’ last seven games.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever been more excited to play a hockey game,” Jarvis said following the morning skate.
Jarvis played much of last season with a shoulder injury but still finished the year with a career-high 33 goals, 34 assists and 67 points. Jarvis would not say if the injury that knocked him out of the lineup was related to that shoulder injury, only saying that it was an upper-body issue.
He has four goals and seven assists for 11 points in 13 games this year.
3. Jarvis will have different linemates when he gets back on the ice for Monday’s game. Brind’Amour had his lines shuffled at the morning skate, putting Jarvis on the left wing opposite Martin Necas on a line centered by Jack Drury.
The lines of Sebastian Aho centering Andrei Svechnikov and Jack Roslovic and the William Carrier-Jordan Staal-Jordan Martinook line were intact, but Jesperi Kotkaniemi was centering Eric Robinson and Jackson Blake at the skate.
Brind’Amour’s practice lines generally indicate his game time lines, even if he’s reluctant to admit that.
“We shuffle the lines because Jarvy, I’m not sure 100% where he’s going to fit,” Brind’Amour said. “So that’s why I don’t want you to sit there and go, ’He’s on that line’ because he hasn’t played in two weeks or whatever. So I’m going to be bouncing guys around all over the place.”
4. Lost in all the roster flux is the opponent. The Stars are arguably the league’s most complete roster, even if, like Carolina, they lack a superstar player.
Dallas is 13-6-0 and has won five of its last six, collectively outscoring its opponents 27-12. Goalie Jack Oettinger, who will start Monday, has won five straight and hasn’t allowed more than two goals in any of those wins.
“I mean, they’re there every year,” Brind’Amour said of the Stars. “And there’s a reason: You watch how they play. Veteran group that they sprinkled in the young guys that are really contributing, but they know how to play the game. They don’t beat themselves, and when they do, they’ve got a really good goalie.
“So they have a lot of confidence to stick with what they’re doing. Whether up or down, they don’t change, and that’s really what good teams — that’s how they play. You know what you’re getting.”
The Hurricanes will also be a challenge for the Stars, especially at Lenovo Center, where Carolina can utilize last change and deploy shutdown center Jordan Staal and defenseman Jaccob Slavin at Brind’Amour’s will.
“The matchups are tough,” Dallas coach Peter DeBoer said after the Stars’ skate. “And you know what? When you’ve got a guy like Staal, you’re gonna start with the puck because of how good he is on faceoffs. And that’s a big part of it, too, is who’s got the puck, who’s starting with the puck. So those are great luxuries to have in your lineup.”
Another thing to watch in this game is that two of the NHL’s top rookies, Logan Stankoven and Blake, will face off. Stankoven is second in the NHL in rookie scoring with 15 points (four goals, 11 assists) in 19 games while logging 15:20 a night, while Blake is second in goals with six and has eight points in just 12:31. Philadelphia’s Matevi Michkov leads in both goals and points.
With Jarvis back in the lineup, Blake will bump down to the second power play unit. Tyson Jost was reassigned to the Chicago Wolves.
5. Brind’Amour is in a unique situation in that his status as a franchise icon and success as a coach probably means he can decide for himself when he’ll be done coaching in Carolina or altogether.
No other coach in the league has that luxury, as Jim Montgomery and Drew Bannister learned last week.
The Bruins fired Montgomery after an 8-9-3 start despite him holding a 120-41-23 record in Boston that included the team’s record-breaking 135-point season in 2022-23.
“It’s ‘what have you done for me lately?’” Brind’Amour said of Montgomery’s firing. “I can’t really speak to other teams, why they do things, but that’s the professional in it. You can’t get rid of 20 players, but you can certainly chuck a coach out and make a change and jump-start things. And that’s why we’ve kind of come to that, I think, in all sports, especially hockey. That’s the easy thing to do to kind of get moving along.”
It didn’t take long for Montgomery to land on his feet: He was hired by the Blues and given a five-year contract just five days later.
“Obviously, he’s a good coach,” Brind’Amour said. “It took him three days to get a job, right? But sometimes you have to make changes, and that’s the easiest way to do it.”
That also meant another coach had to lose his job — in this case, Bannister, who had been given the full-time job last offseason after replacing Craig Berube on an interim basis last season. A 39-31-6 record wasn’t enough for the Blues to keep him over bringing back Montgomery, who was an assistant under Berube for two seasons.
“Like I said, you know day one when I took the job, you have a shelf life,” Brind’Amour said when asked about Bannister’s firing. “Hopefully it’s a longer one, but that’s just how it goes.”
