RALEIGH — Nicolas Deslauriers has never fought at Lenovo Center.
Chances are, that is about to change.
The Hurricanes acquired one of the NHL’s most feared fighters at last week’s trade deadline, acquiring the 35-year-old defenseman-turned-winger from Philadelphia for a conditional seventh round draft pick.
“I thought it wasn’t going to happen, and then practice, and there it is,” Deslauriers said of the trade Monday after his first practice with his new team.
Hurricanes GM Eric Tulsky, speaking with the media following last Friday’s deadline, said the addition of the 6-foot-1, 218-pound Deslauriers can give his team an extra boost.
“It’s easier to have that toughness when you’ve got a guy like Deslauriers out there with you,” he said.
Coach Rod Brind’Amour has advocated for adding Deslauriers in the past, and the Quebec native said he nearly signed with the Hurricanes four years ago. He instead ended up with the Flyers on a contract with a $1.75 million cap hit that will end after this season.
“It’s kind of a reunion, let’s say,” Deslauriers said.
Let’s also say he wasn’t brought to Raleigh to fill the net. Deslauriers has one assist in 24 games this season and 105 points in 701 career games, but he’s best known for his pugilism. In his 13-season NHL career with five previous teams, he has 90 major penalties — the third most since he entered the league in 2014.
The Hurricanes have five fights this year — the same total as Deslauriers, who has four times finished with double-digit scraps in a season. So even though he’s played more than 60 games in a season just five times in his career, when he’s in the lineup, opponents know why he’s there.
“I wish I was a power play guy, but it’s not what got me to the league,” he said.
Deslauriers also brings physicality beyond dropping the gloves, ranking 11th in hits with 2,201 since debuting in the league, and his 18.43 hits per 60 is fifth among players with at least 250 games played since the 2013-14 season.
Brind’Amour has often decried the fighting culture of the past, but that doesn’t mean the coach who played alongside the likes of Dave Brown, Craig Berube and Jesse Boulerice doesn’t know the value of an enforcer.
“We’ve had some communication over the years, and the guy’s a veteran player,” Brind’Amour said of Deslauriers on Monday. “And I always talk about, when you talk about players, what do you do? We know what he brings.”
While many consider dedicated fighters a dying breed, Deslauriers thinks there’s still space for players who enforce hockey’s unwritten code.
“I’ve said it and I’m not shy about it that I think there’s a place for a role like mine in the league. … I still believe that there’s (a need for) this type of player in the league, and I try to prove myself for that,” he said.
The Hurricanes forward corps is stacked, and Deslaurier hasn’t played since the trade. But on nights when an opponent has their brawler on the opposing bench — circle Scott Sabourin and the pugnacious Lightning on Saturday in Tampa, for example — Brind’Amour now has a card he can play that he didn’t before last Friday.
“I can go 15, 20 games without fighting, and I can get a spurt of like five or six in two weeks,” Deslauriers said. “So you never know when it happens.”
He’s also very aware he’s joining a team that’s looking to fill the same void he has on his resume — a Stanley Cup.
“When you look at the big picture, coming here to a team that’s a top seed like that, you’re excited,” he said. “And you want to not overthink but think about the things that I can do to bring to this team without touching what’s going on right now. … I’ll stay behind the weeds a little bit to see what happens, and when my name’s called upon, I’ll be ready.”
One small note on that: During Thursday’s morning skate, Deslauriers was serving as a penalty killer against Carolina’s top power play unit. A puck went to the point and bounced over Alexander Nikishin’s stick. Nikishin was visibly irritated the puck got past him, but Deslauriers rushed to the rookie and offered encouragement.
2. Brandon Bussi is poised to be back between the pipes Thursday against the visiting Blues, and it will be an important game for the first-year goalie.
Since the Olympic break, Bussi has allowed 13 goals in three starts, posting a 2-1-0 record despite an .827 save percentage.
A large part of the problem has been Bussi’s puck-handling ability. It hasn’t been a strong suit for him throughout the season, but the mistakes have compounded of late, and two of his turnovers in Saturday’s loss in Calgary led directly to goals in a one-goal defeat.
Before Monday’s practice, goalie coach Paul Schonfelder worked with Bussi on handling pucks behind the net, and the goalie — reminder, he’s still a stunning 25-4-1 this season — said he’s not worried about the recent mishaps.
“I want teams to dump pucks and let me play them,” he said. “I need to clean it up. You can’t cost two goals; it’s kind of the reason why we lost in Calgary.”
But he added that those mistakes are not indicative of his ability to play the puck.
“It’s not me. I’m not too concerned,” he said. “This really hasn’t been a problem in my career. I think that there’s been issues with it that I need to work on. And me and the D corps as a whole need to get a little bit more on page. But it starts mostly with me.”
Brind’Amour, like Bussi, didn’t seem overly concerned with Bussi’s recent miscues.
“You’re going to have those days,” Brind’Amour said Monday. “And if that’s part of the game that he needs to continually work at, then he will, and he’ll get better at it. You definitely don’t dwell on stuff like that, but you learn, OK, what to do, what not to do. Paulie’s working with him every day, so I think that’ll be an area that you’ll see him get better over time.”
Bussi had a similar take: bad things sometimes occur, you move on.
“Stuff happens,” he said. “There’s split-second plays, pucks bounce. It becomes less of a concern if the other goals also don’t go in, but it’s the first goal being the turnover is what led to a lot of their momentum.
“So it’s a lot of responsibility. It can be momentum changes. So I’m not worried about it, but it needs to get cleaned up.”
3. Lurking in the backdrop of Bussi’s recent struggles is Frederik Andersen.
Don’t look now, but since Andersen snapped a nine-start winless streak in January, he’s earned at least a point in the standings in eight of his last nine starts. He allowed two goals in the only regulation loss, a 2-1 defeat in Seattle.
Don’t pencil in Andersen as the Game 1 starter in the postseason just yet — his save percentage is still a below-league-average .883 during his 5-1-3 stretch — but Bussi being the definitive postseason starter no longer seems guaranteed.
If there’s one thing left to be decided in the final 18 games of the regular season, it’s which goalie gives Carolina the best chance to win once the playoffs begin.
4. Nikishin set a new franchise record for rookie defensemen when he scored his ninth goal of the season in Tuesday’s win. It was also Nikishin’s second straight game with a goal, which, according to Hockey-Reference.com, ties a franchise record.
Brett Pesce scored in consecutive games in November 2015 as a rookie, and Whalers defenseman Brad Shaw also had goals in back-to-back games in March 1990. He can set that record Thursday against the Blues.
Here are a few more ways Nikishin stacks up against fellow franchise rookies:
- He is currently plus 13, the second-best plus-minus among rookie defensemen. Grant Jennings finished plus 17 in 55 games in 1988-89 with the Whalers.
- His four power play goals are one fewer than Justin Faulk’s record five in 2011-12.
- Nikishin’s 111 hits currently rank third behind Brett Bellemore’s 169 (64 games in 2013-14) and Faulk’s 113 (66 games in 2011-12).
- His 71 giveaways are the most by a rookie defenseman in franchise history since the NHL started tracking it in 2005-06.
- He could have even more goals — he’s hit the post three times and the crossbar once, totaling more than any franchise rookie defenseman since the league started tracking the stat in 2009-10.
5. The Penguins’ visit to Raleigh marked the first time the Hurricanes had played Pittsburgh minus both Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin in more than 15 years.
The last time was Feb. 25, 2011, when Crosby was out with a concussion and Malkin suffered a knee injury earlier in the month. Crosby missed Tuesday’s game while recovering from an injury suffered at the Olympics, while Malkin was out because he was serving the third game of a five-game suspension.
The Penguins’ No. 1 center with both Crosby and Malkin out back in 2011 was, in case you want to realize how long ago that was, Jordan Staal.
Staal has played 958 of his 1,389 regular-season games with the Hurricanes, but the other 431 were with Pittsburgh, the team that drafted him second overall in 2006 and where he won his lone Stanley Cup in 2009.
Many expected the Penguins to be the league’s worst team this season, and plenty had opined before the season that Malkin or Crosby could be on the move before the trade deadline to give them another taste of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Instead, the Penguins are in position to return to the postseason after a three-season hiatus. They are currently in second place in the Metropolitan Division.
Staal’s not surprised given who is leading Pittsburgh’s locker room.
“They’re world-class players that, you start making the turnover, you start bringing in new young guys, they’re going to learn so quickly from those guys and understand what it takes to win,” Staal said after Thursday’s morning skate. “And they’re going to teach them so quickly that, I think, those teams that are maybe under construction are doing it quicker because they have those guys there.”
Staal wasn’t quite ready to say he was happy to see former teammates and lifelong Penguins like Crosby and Malkin get another shot at a Stanley Cup run, especially with a possible playoff matchup looming this spring.
“They’ve won a lot. I’d rather win than them, for sure,” he said with a smile. “I’m sick of watching them win. But obviously, they’re two exceptional players that aren’t going to say no, and they’re going to do the best they can to help win.”
