RALEIGH - Opening night in the National Hockey League is all about new beginnings. A new season, with all its possibilities. New faces in the locker room. New hope.
So it will be tonight for the Carolina Hurricanes, who open the season against the Florida Panthers at the RBC Center.
The Hurricanes missed the playoffs the past two seasons, which causes veterans such as Rod Brind’Amour to burn with intensity. That the Panthers were the team that beat the Canes in the last regular-season game last season, denying Carolina a playoff spot, only adds to it.
“That rings a big bell for a lot of us,” defenseman Tim Gleason said Thursday. “It’s a new start, a different season and two points on the line, and there’s a little revenge there, obviously.
“But we need to forget about what happened last year. This game has been a long time coming. We’re rarin’ to go.”
To look about the Canes’ locker room Thursday was to quickly grasp how much has changed since opening night last year, of how many were not in the room.
Sergei Samsonov and Tuomo Ruutu were with the Chicago Blackhawks, Joe Corvo and Patrick Eaves with the Ottawa Senators. Joni Pitkanen was with the Edmonton Oilers.
Anton Babchuk was playing in Russia. Michael Leighton was in the American Hockey League. Brandon Sutter was preparing for another year of junior hockey in Red Deer, Alberta.
As for Dan LaCouture, he was at home in Centerville, Mass., unsure what the year would bring. His hockey career, he feared, could be over at age 30.
For Samsonov, coming to the Hurricanes in early January — claimed off waivers — was a rebirth of sorts. In 38 games for Carolina, the winger had 14 goals and 18 assists and clearly enjoyed himself again on the ice.
“It had been a rough couple of years,” he said. “You start wondering which way things are going and wondering if you’ll ever get that opportunity again. Luckily, it did. Coming in, getting a fresh start, getting an opportunity, it made a whole difference for me.”
Trades brought Ruutu, Corvo and Eaves to the Canes last season. Babchuk, a former Carolina defenseman, re-signed with the team in the offseason, and defenseman Josef Melichar was signed to a one-year deal.
Eaves and Corvo came to the Canes in February. Corvo in particular was relieved; the defenseman played his best hockey of the season (21 points in 23 games).
“If you had said at the beginning of last year I’d be with Carolina, I’d probably put a pretty big smile on my face,” the defenseman said. “I wanted out of [Ottawa].”
Speaking of smiles, few players smile more than Pitkanen, the team’s most discussed newcomer. He came to Carolina in the big offseason trade that sent Erik Cole to Edmonton and has won over his teammates with an easygoing personality and some impressive hockey skills.
Read More:News & Observer
RALEIGH - Rod Brind’Amour wanted more minutes. Ray Whitney wanted the puck, and Cam Ward refused to let one go past him.
The Carolina Hurricanes ended the preseason Sunday with a solid 2-0 victory over the Nashville Predators, getting the winning goal from Whitney and a shutout from Ward in goal.
And, in the end, a little more ice time than coach Peter Laviolette wanted to give Brind’Amour — which was just fine with the team captain.
Whitney’s goal at 7:19 of the third period, on the rebound of a Patrick Eaves shot, finally gave the RBC Center crowd something to really cheer about, and Eric Staal later finished it off with an empty-netter. But there was much for the Canes to be pleased about in ending the preseason schedule 3-3 after an 0-3 start.
Brind’Amour, who missed nearly all of training camp after knee surgery on Sept. 16, got in his first game action and had more than 15 minutes of ice time. With the season-opener on Friday night against the Florida Panthers, it was important he get in some work in game situations.
“Lavi told me I wasn’t going to play much,” Brind’Amour said. “When he told me [Sunday] morning I was OK with it, but as the game goes on it was ‘Come on …’
“Because you do need to get in and involved. I am used to playing a lot of minutes, so it was an adjustment.”
And how did he play?
“I knew it was going to be horrible,” Brind’Amour said. “That’s OK. That’s all I wanted to get out of it.
“Hopefully it will get better and better as we move on. It was important to me to get some of the cobwebs out.”
Whitney, too. The winger has missed part of training camp and preseason games but showed little rust and was credited with six of the Canes’ 37 shots and set up Staal for a few others.
“I felt comfortable,” Whitney said. “I felt fine, timing wise. I got a little tired about halfway through the games — my legs felt a little heavy — but they came in the third again.”
The Canes, after a 1-0 victory over the Philadelphia Flyers and 4-2 win at Nashville on Thursday, weren’t at their best the first two periods. But Ward was, notching 23 of his 31 saves in the first 40 minutes.
“I felt good. It’s a nice way to end the exhibition season, obviously,” Ward said. “It was nice to get in a full game and things go well.
“It’s a token to the guys in front of me. They played extremely well. The PK [penalty kill] was really strong. The guys worked hard.”
Brind’Amour said Ward was a hard worker, as well. It was more than the goaltender being in the right position.
“When you have great goal-tending it makes everything look good, and he was solid when he had to be,” Brind’Amour said. “I thought he was really good with the puck.
“He was playing the puck and giving our defensemen passes — things we haven’t seen in the past him doing. He was really doing it well today.”
Read More:News & Observer
ATLANTA - The NHL All-Star Game is only six hours away from the Triangle this weekend. It should be only four years away from coming to Raleigh.With the pace of hotel development in the Triangle quickening, the time has come for the NHL to live up to the pledge commissioner Gary Bettman made in 2001, even if it’s six years late.
The Montreal Canadiens will host the event next year, and there’s no game in 2010 because of the Winter Olympics. The Phoenix Coyotes, who were scheduled to host in 2006 before that game was canceled because of NHL’s involvement at the Olympics, are likely to get the 2011 game — although no announcement is expected this weekend.
That leaves 2012 for the Hurricanes, and all indications are they’re first in line for that date, although an NHL spokesman said any speculation for 2011 or beyond is “way premature in terms of prospective cities.”
Bettman offered the Hurricanes a giant carrot for a sales campaign in the spring of 2001: Get the season-ticket base to 12,000, and the league would bring an All-Star Game to Raleigh within five years. (A draft was awarded, without conditions, and duly held in 2004.)
Fans bought tickets — lots of them. While there was some debate over whether the final numbers were fudged to meet the goal, the league was thrilled with the response, and as far as Bettman was concerned, the goal was met.
Since then, the league has awarded All-Star Games to St. Paul, Minn.; Atlanta; Phoenix; Dallas and Montreal.
Raleigh, meanwhile, continues to wait. The team acknowledged in an August 2002 letter to the league that the market wasn’t ready, primarily because of a lack of high-end hotel space that forced unhappy teams to be spread out over too far an area at the 2004 draft.
But that landscape has changed dramatically. With The Umstead open in Cary, high-rise hotels going up downtown, at North Hills and at Crabtree Valley, and the convention center on the verge of completion, Raleigh is not only ready to host an All-Star Game, it’s overdue.
With more than 5,000 deep-pocketed visitors, an All-Star Game would add more than $10 million to the Triangle economy — more than an NCAA basketball regional, an NHL draft and a U.S. Open in the Sandhills combined.
The league entertains its most valued sponsors and dignitaries with a whirlwind of fan events, galas and, sometimes almost lost in the shuffle, the game itself, broadcast to an international audience.
It’s a substantial logistical commitment to host the event, but it offers untold rewards. While the 2002 and 2006 Stanley Cup finals put the Triangle on a world stage, the All-Star Game takes that exposure to another level.
Read More:News & Observer
Tonight, Ron Francis joins hockey’s biggest legends
TORONTO - It was on a family tour of the steel mill where Ron Francis’ father worked that he imparted one of the two major pieces of advice Francis still remembers today.
A catwalk runs over the spot where the steel rails slide out of the oven, still glowing hot, and a giant saw cuts them to length, and there his father halted to take in the view.
“It’s noisy and it’s loud and it’s hot and the saw is buzzing and the rails are there,” Francis said. “I remember him grabbing me on top of the bridge and stopping and he said ‘You see all this?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘Make sure you go to school.’ ”
(The other piece of advice, after a day Francis spent in net, was not to play goalie.)
But Francis, 44, didn’t get a chance to go to school. He was in the NHL at 18, drafted fourth overall by the Hartford Whalers off his hometown junior team. Even that was beyond his father’s expectations.
“We had hoped that probably in the end he’d be good enough to get a scholarship or some education through hockey,” his father, also Ron, said this week. “That was about the extent of it.”
As it turns out, Francis’ academic degree is an honorary one, awarded by Lake Superior State in 1998 to recognize his charity work; his doctorate in hockey will be affirmed tonight when he is inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.
“This is the pinnacle of our sport as far as individual honors,” Francis said. “To be invited into this very special and very unique club is really special. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t looking forward to getting that blazer.”
A list of hockey luminaries will be there in Francis’ honor, including former teammates Tom Barrasso, Ed Olczyk, Jay Caufield, Kevin Dineen, Greg Millen, Dave Keon and Bryan Trottier, along with former Whalers owner Howard Baldwin, Hurricanes owner Peter Karmanos and general manager Jim Rutherford.
All contributed in one way or another to Francis’ playing career, and without them he would not be here. A player who made his mark creating goals for other people needs those people to score, as Dineen most notably often did. (Only Jaromir Jagr scored more goals off Francis assists than Dineen’s 79.)
A father’s words stick
Ron Francis Sr. will be there as well. He has been in Toronto this weekend as his son indulges in the pomp and circumstance of induction weekend. He will be there tonight for the official ceremony.
But he has been there all along, because Francis never forgot his father’s lessons, whether it was that day at the mill or the discussions after games or while watching Hockey Night in Canada on television.
Some were simple: Work hard. Play smart. Others were more complicated, and perhaps more influential to the player Francis would become.
“He always emphasized both ends of the rink,” Francis said. “It was important to play defense, and if you stopped a goal, it was just as important as scoring a goal. He also emphasized the fact if you set up a goal, that was just as important as you scoring the goal yourself.
“That was how my game evolved, taking those concepts and working them into my game.”
Each of the players going into the Hall with Francis has his own trademark. Mark Messier was the leader. Al MacInnis the shooter. Scott Stevens the punishing hitter.
Thanks to those chats with his father, Francis goes into the Hall as the thinker — a truly cerebral player who saw the game a little better than those around him and flourished because of it.
A consistent presence
His father’s influence was not limited to the way Francis played, but his dedication to the game as well. When the Hurricanes signed Francis as a free agent in 1998, they were criticized for giving a lucrative four-year contract to a player who would be 39 at the end of the deal.
Read More: News & Observer
VANCOUVER AT CAROLINA, 7 P.M. TODAYWHERE: RBC Center, Raleigh RADIO: WCNC-99.9 TICKETS: (919) 834-4000
BURNING QUESTION
After scoring only eight goals in their past three games despite generating an average of 38 shots, how will the Hurricanes fare against Roberto Luongo?
CAROLINA
Yow to drop puck on special night
It’s Hockey Fights Cancer night at the RBC Center, with coaches and broadcasters wearing pink ties. N.C. State women’s basketball coach Kay Yow will drop the puck for the ceremonial opening faceoff. … Rod Brind’Amour and Justin Williams have five-game scoring streaks. … The Hurricanes have scored a power-play goal in seven of eight games and are 11-for-42 (26.2 percent, second in the NHL).
VANCOUVER
Luongo gets call for Canucks
This is the second game of a four-game swing along the East Coast for the Canucks, one that began Sunday against the Columbus Blue Jackets. Curtis Sanford started in goal, so Roberto Luongo will face Carolina tonight. … The Sedin twins, Daniel and Henrik, went into Sunday’s game with a combined 15 points in the past six games. … Jeff Cowan (hip) is day-to-day. Sami Salo (wrist) is out.
PLAYERS TO WATCH
JEFF HAMILTON, C
Hamilton’s willingness to shoot from the blue line continues to drive Carolina’s power play. He’s tied for third on the team in shots (22) and tied for fourth in points (7) despite ranking 10th among Carolina forwards in ice time at 12:32 per game. The Hurricanes are 4-0-1 when Hamilton records a point.
BRAD ISBISTER, LW
Read More: News & Observer
Walker goes out with torso injury
PITTSBURGH - At this point, the Carolina Hurricanes are less concerned with escaping Mellon Arena with a win than they are with escaping with their health.
On Friday night in the same building where the Canes lost Erik Cole to a broken neck two seasons ago and Trevor Letowski to a concussion last season, Scott Walker was injured. He was treated and released at a Pittsburgh hospital with what the team described as a “torso injury.”
In the moments after Walker’s injury, the Pittsburgh Penguins scored twice to tie the score going into the third period and went on to win 4-3 in a shootout.
All three Pittsburgh shooters scored on Hurricanes goalie Cam Ward. Jeff Hamilton and Matt Cullen scored for Carolina, but Ray Whitney was denied by Dany Sabourin’s glove to give the Penguins the victory and hand the Hurricanes their sixth straight shootout loss.
Petr Sykora scored twice for the Penguins, giving him 14 goals and 27 points in 32 career games against the Hurricanes, and he put in one of the goals in the shootout.
Whitney, Letowski and Justin Williams scored for Carolina, which had won eight of its previous 12 games in Pittsburgh — but at a cost.
“We’ve had pretty good success in here since I’ve been here,” Cole said. “Those are just things you can’t really control. Who knows how to explain that. You just hope [Walker] is OK.”
In the first period, Walker had been shaken up when Pittsburgh’s Jarkko Ruutu crashed into him next to the Carolina net, tumbling over Walker, who fell awkwardly.
Walker returned to the ice, but with 2:38 to play in the second period, he fell to his knees on the ice in front of the Carolina bench, apparently struggling to breathe.
Pittsburgh’s doctor was brought onto the ice. Paramedics brought out a stretcher, but Walker was helped off on his feet, his right arm dangling at his side. X-rays and a CT scan were clear, a team spokesman said, and Walker traveled with the team to Philadelphia late Friday.
Moments after Walker left, Carolina’s lead was gone as well.
“Did they catch us on the first goal? Yeah,” Hurricanes coach Peter Laviolette said. “We took a breath.”
The Penguins went with Sabourin in goal instead of struggling starter Marc-Andre Fleury, and Sabourin gave up a goal on the first shot he faced, a power-play goal by Whitney that whizzed over Sabourin’s glove. The Hurricanes have scored a power-play goal in six of seven games this season.
Sabourin made a pad save on a Cole breakaway later in the first to keep the Carolina lead at one. The stop would prove critical when Sykora got the Penguins on the board, beating Mike Commodore to the net when Whitney whiffed at a Crosby rebound.
Read On: News & Observer
Rather than take a day off, 15 players choose to work out
RALEIGH - Coming off a three-game sweep in Canada, Carolina goaltender Cam Ward and his teammates were not seeking a five-day cooling off period.
At the risk of halting whatever momentum the team gained in road victories over Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal, however, a few Hurricanes will gladly take the game-free stretch to nurse early-season injuries.
On the day that the NHL named him first star of the week after posting a 1.67 goals-against average and .939 save percentage in those three wins, Ward was back on the RecZone ice for an optional workout that drew 14 other players.
“Today was an optional, but I didn’t want to take a couple of days off,” said Ward, who entered Monday night ranked fifth in the league in save percentage (.942) and seventh in goals-against average (1.79). “I want to keep doing the same things that I’ve been doing, sticking with the same routine,”
The gap in Carolina’s schedule, which ends with a Friday road game against the Pittsburgh Penguins, marks the second-longest break all season.
For winger Andrew Ladd and defenseman Mike Commodore, who have been sidelined since suffering opening-week injuries, the break could improve the chances of a Friday night return to the lineup. Monday marked the pair’s first extended practice time since getting hurt.
The deep bruise that Commodore said he suffered on his abdominal oblique muscle in the Oct. 3 opener limited him to spot duty two nights later and kept him in the press box during the Canes’ road trip. Ladd turned his right ankle late in the third period of Carolina’s Oct. 6 loss at Washington but said he’s shooting to return Friday night.
“It’s not bad, just trying to get comfortable on your edges and stuff. That’s probably the biggest thing,” Ladd said Monday about his skating. “It’s nice to have these days before the game, hopefully get some practices in and get the conditioning back up and get the ankle feeling a lot better.”
Full Story:News & Observer
Team on the hunt for a defenseman
MONTREAL - The season may only be 10 days old, but for the Carolina Hurricanes, the early returns validate everything they said before it started.
Thursday’s 5-3 win over the previously unbeaten Ottawa Senators, running Carolina’s early record to 3-1-1, put the stamp of authenticity on the Canes’ status as a legitimate contender.
With that fact established going into tonight’s game against the Montreal Canadiens, there’s only one area where the Hurricanes could use some help — an offensive-minded defenseman who fits in Carolina’s top four.
It’s not too early to start thinking about it, Hurricanes general manager Jim Rutherford acknowledged Friday.
“Not necessarily, because basically the defense we have now is the same or equivalent to the defense that we had when we had the good year two years ago,” he said. “With that being said, our team would be improved with another defenseman that can move the puck.
“It would help our transition game. It would potentially give us another defenseman for the second unit of the power play.”
Adding some offensive punch on the blue line has been near the top of Rutherford’s agenda since the end of last season. The Canes had a deal in place this summer — rumored to be for either Joni Pitkanen of the Flyers or Christian Ehrhoff of the Sharks– but Niclas Wallin declined to waive his no-trade clause.
Instead, they brought in forwards Matt Cullen and Jeff Hamilton, both of whom play the point on the power play. Last weekend, they signed David Tanabe to add depth to the blue line, and in that capacity, he’s a good fit. He’s also on a two-way contract, so the Canes can stash him in Albany (AHL) if the need arises.
But after demonstrating through the first five games of the season that the Canes have championship aspirations, the addition of a player who can make a quick transition from defense to offense would offer substantial reinforcement.
Much like Doug Weight was in 2006, a puck-moving defenseman could be the missing piece that puts the Canes over the top. The problem is, there isn’t a huge pool of impending unrestricted free agents on teams that don’t figure to be in contention who fit that description — Rob Blake and Brad Stuart with the Kings and Brent Sopel with the Blackhawks are the most notable names.
Read More: News & Observer
Healthy and hungry again, Carolina wants another Stanley Cup
RALEIGH - At a time when so much of the focus seems to be about the past, the Carolina Hurricanes say they’re ready for the future. Amid the hubbub of their 10th anniversary in North Carolina and the lingering disappointment of their failure to defend their Stanley Cup championship last season, a quiet new optimism has arisen among the Hurricanes.
Now, as the Hurricanes open the season tonight against the Montreal Canadiens at the RBC Center, they hope a summer of rest and the memories of a title will fuel another.
It started during a summer that saw the Hurricanes re-sign potential free agents Ray Whitney and Scott Walker and re-acquire center Matt Cullen, who left after the 2006 championship.
Then, over the past month, the Hurricanes went 4-1-1 in the preseason — mostly meaningless, but a good sign nonetheless — and got outstanding play in goal from Cam Ward and John Grahame.
“My level of optimism is very high,” Hurricanes coach Peter Laviolette said. “Our expectations are extremely high. Our goal, our purpose for being here is to win the Stanley Cup.”
At the end of practice Tuesday, captain Rod Brind’Amour gathered the team around him on the ice for an animated 40-second pep talk. The message? He’s not saying. But it isn’t hard to figure out.
“We want to get off to a good start, obviously,” Brind’Amour said. “Every team does, but it seemed last year that was one of the real reasons why we didn’t have a very good season.”
If the Hurricanes want to get off to a good start, they’ll have to start tonight, when future turns to present.
PARLEZ-VOUS FRANCAIS?
Carolina is the only NHL team whose opener won’t be broadcast on TV in its local market.
Because Versus has exclusive national rights to the NHL on opening night, local rights-holder Fox Sports Net South could not carry the game. Versus chose to broadcast the Anaheim Ducks and Detroit Red Wings at 7 p.m. instead.
Fans with Time Warner digital cable, DirecTV or Dish Network can watch the French-language broadcast on Canadian network RDS on the NHL Center Ice package, which is running a free preview through Oct. 9.
LOVE OF THE GAME KEEPS WESLEY GOING
Only one player has been on the roster in each of the team’s seasons in North Carolina: defenseman Glen Wesley, who turned 39 on Tuesday.
Could he ever have thought, back when he was traded to the then-Hartford Whalers in 1995, he’d still be playing 12 years later? “No,” Wesley said, shaking his head.
“You just evaluate things as you get older,” Wesley said. “I still love the game and want to compete and win again. You get a taste of it and you win and you want to do it again.”
Read More:News & Observer
