RALEIGH — The Carolina Hurricanes will see several familiar faces during their first round series with the New Jersey Devils, including Dougie Hamilton, Erik Haula and Stefan Noesen.
But no face this playoff season will look stranger lining up across the Hurricanes’ players than Brett Pesce.
Pesce was drafted by Carolina 66th overall in the third round of the 2013 NHL Draft and lasted just three games in the AHL during his first full professional season in 2015 before earning a promotion to Raleigh.
Nine seasons and more than 600 games later, Pesce, an unrestricted free agent last summer, signed with the Devils, staying in the division and setting up this and possibly future playoff clashes.
Hurricanes center Sebastian Aho said “there are no friends in a series,” and the lines of communication with his former teammate are “radio silence.”
Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour seems pained every time one of his mainstay players — Brock McGinn, Nino Niederreiter, Vincent Trocheck, Brady Skjei or Pesce, for example — takes their services elsewhere. He also knows what this time of year is all about.
“He’s a great player,” Brind’Amour said of Pesce on the eve of Game 1. “There’s a reason they went and grabbed him out of free agency. There’s a reason we wanted to keep him. It’s all part of it. … He’s not on our team anymore. We’ll always be friends, and he’s always part of the Hurricanes family. But not these couple of weeks.”
Long story short, friendships get set aside come playoff time. But that doesn’t mean facing a former team or teammate can’t be difficult and awkward. I asked a handful of Hurricanes about some of the first times they experienced those moments in their playing careers.
Frederik Andersen
“The one that came to mind was my first game against (former Ducks teammate Andrew) Cogliano,” Andersen said. “I was in Toronto, and they came to Toronto and he was still there. That was the first time playing a close friend.
“I think I got the better of him the times we played. I’m pretty sure he would have let me know if he had scored one. I don’t think he got one, but that was the first one.”
A quick fact check: Cogliano had one assist in seven career games — three with Anaheim, two with Dallas, and one each with San Jose and Colorado — against Andersen, while the goalie had a 3-3-0 record in those games.
Tyson Jost
“I can’t really remember the first,” Jost said. “You have so many buddies and stuff like that throughout the NHL. My first time, I guess, was one of my best friends, Dante Fabbro, who played on Nashville. That was kind of cool because we grew up together, played in Penticton (BCHL, 2014-16) together, lived together. That was definitely cool. Our families are super close as well. So that was kind of the first time.
I followed up and asked Jost if he was anxious about that game.
“I was just kind of excited and it was cool, I’d say,” he said. “No nerves or butterflies or anything like that — it was just cool.”
Jesperi Kotkaniemi
“Probably the first game back in Montreal was a little interesting,” Kotkaniemi predictably said. “Otherwise, nothing pops in my mind really.”
Andrei Svechnikov
“I don’t really remember that I was nervous playing against someone, but obviously, I got goosebumps playing against my brother,” he said of playing against older sibling Evgeny. “That was one thing. Another thing, just playing my first games. It’s always kind of special and a little bit nervous, exciting. But I was never, like, nervous playing against someone.”
As far as playing against familiar faces on the Devils, he said the opposite is true.
“I would put it the other way,” he said. “It’s kind of nice to play against those guys because you already know them. He’s a player, he’s a guy, so it’s kind of fun to play against those guys.”
Sean Walker
“Probably the first time I was traded from LA,” Walker said. “I was there for a really long time, kind of came into the league with a lot of those guys. So that first time is definitely a little funny. I was definitely anxious for that game.
“But you kind of forget about it and you get used to it. Now, it’s great. I love playing against all those guys and stuff; still battle out there and everything. I almost took (Adrian) Kempe into the boards this year, and we’re really good buddies. So it’s good, but I think that first time around was a little funny.”
Rod Brind’Amour
“The only time I was ever that was when I got traded here,” Brind’Amour said. “But we did play Philadelphia fairly early. But we didn’t go back there that whole year. So that would have been tough to go back in, the home crowd.
“But playing against the guys, it wasn’t that tough. Everybody’s laughing, joking out there. So it felt weird in a sense, like, ‘Golly.’ But it’s not that big a deal. I think it would have been really tough had it been like a week later and playing in Philadelphia, that would have just been really rough. But I had almost a whole year. We didn’t play there the rest of the year, and then by the time we got there, it was really late. So I had already settled in.”
