State of the Canes: Five Current Storylines for the Carolina Hurricanes

On Wednesday, January 11, Carolina Hurricanes forward Martin Necas went to the podium and confessed his desire to participate in the 2023 NHL All-Star Game.

“I would love to go. It’s the All-Star,” Necas said. It would maybe be different if you go five times, then maybe you want more of a vacation, but I want to go.”

Necas’ All-Star candidacy began after forward Jordan Martinook addressed the fanbase’s desire to vote him into the All-Star game. Martinook took it as an opportunity to promote his teammate.

“There’s someone to my left that deserves it a heck of a lot more,” Martinook said in reference to Necas. “Get him there.”

Since Martinook’s statement, the fanbase and the Hurricanes’ Twitter account pushed Necas’ All-Star candidacy as much as possible, which speaks to the season he has experienced thus far. He trended up to number three on Twitter’s trending list.

The fanfare not only shows how Necas has progressed thus far, as he has already surpassed his career high in goals and nears his career high in points. With 17 goals and 22 assists thus far, Necas blossomed into one of the Hurricanes’ scoring leaders this season.

Necas’ story speaks to player development and how progression is not necessarily linear; the recently-turned 24-year-old forward received a bridge contract after a down year last season. After playing his best hockey, the team and the fans rallied around the cause of getting him recognition.

With that anecdote, welcome to some current storylines with the Carolina Hurricanes based on last week.

State of the Canes: Five Current Storylines for the Carolina Hurricanes

This series may be starting late into the season, but the plan is to touch on some growing narratives for the team as well as interesting tidbits each week. Let us dive into how this week went.

The Hurricanes went a pedestrian 2-1-1 this week with wins against Pittsburgh and Columbus while they suffered losses against New Jersey and Vancouver.

Some general news of note revolves around goaltender Pyotr Kochetkov, as the team sent him back down to the Chicago Wolves after he played like a solid starter for a while.

Kochetkov went 10-4-5 and has a .913 save percentage at 2.33 goals against average. While he still looks the part as an NHL goalie, he showed he had some work to do as he struggled against New Jersey. Rather than being a third string goalie, he gets the shot to continue starting for a team.

Additionally, forward Max Pacioretty missed two games after his return due to a lower body injury that has nothing to do with his Achilles injury. While Head Coach Rod Brind’Amor expressed his lack of worry, the Hurricanes have seen multiple short-term injuries take players out for longer than expected this season, especially with star forward Sebastian Aho.

Otherwise, this week played out fairly similarly to the rest of the season. The Hurricanes benefitted from a lot of tightly played one-score games, and even in their losses, they played competitively.

With that out of the way, here are the three storylines that stood out this week.

After missing time dealing with a lower-body injury he sustained on November 8th, goalie Frederik Andersen returned to the Hurricanes’ lineup and immediately looked as if he did not miss a beat.

Prior to the injury, Andersen actually struggled a bit, as he has a .903 save percentage on the season. However, in his past two games, he averaged a .942 save percentage. Most notably, he posted 34 saves against Pittsburgh for a .971 save percentage in that game.

Andersen’s return should help stabilize the Hurricanes’ goaltending. While the team’s core still looks solid, Antti Raanta and Pyotr Kochetkov had struggled a bit in Andersen’s absence.

Andersen only played two games, but him keeping up his current form would go a long way to helping the Hurricanes.

Sebastian Aho began the season on a high note, but he rested for a couple weeks due to a lower-body injury. Since then, he seemingly cooled his scoring pace, but he returned to form this week.

Over the past four games, Aho scored six points with two goals and four assists. Among the highlights for this week is a breakaway goal he scored on Vancouver to give the Hurricanes a lead late into the third quarter.

With Andrei Svechnikov making the All-Star Game and the Hurricanes promoting the aforementioned Martin Necas campaign, Aho’s consistency gets lost in the shuffle. In his return, though, he has yet again proven how invaluable he is to the Hurricanes.

When the Hurricanes have played as close as they have to teams this season, consistency from their stars can be the equalizer. Aho provided that this week.