Hurricanes’ home opener has empty feeling after unexpected coronavirus pause
The least heralded home opener in the two-plus decades the Carolina Hurricanes have been here will see a depleted and potentially rusty team grace the ice against — no big deal — the defending Stanley Cup champions.
The lack of fanfare has nothing to do with the team, which had its moments (and its ups and downs) in the three games it was able to play before shutting down thanks to a spate of positive COVID-19 tests. The Hurricanes entered the expectations as high as they’ve ever been. But with an empty building and empty parking lots, they might as well be playing the Tampa Bay Lightning on a soundstage somewhere as much as PNC Arena.
Which is, of course, basically what the NHL did last summer with its bubbles in Toronto and Edmonton to finish the 2020 season. That went surprisingly smoothly. The new season, not quite as much.
It isn’t all that equitable for the Hurricanes to jump back into the mix without five key players against the best team in the league with only two practices after a week off, but that’s the reality of the NHL in 2021. (Never mind cramming the four missed games back into a schedule already compressed to the utmost; that bill is coming and has yet to be paid.)
“I’d love to say you can always find something good to come out of bad things, but I wouldn’t be telling the truth,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “We made the best of what we could, at least. We did some review, we tried to keep the guys’ minds sharp on the hockey side of things, but it’s not the same. That’s for sure. And then there’s the physical side of it.”
Not only will their lungs be burning Thursday night, the Hurricanes will be missing a Norris Trophy candidate, their most versatile forward, their most vocal leader and their big free-agent signing, but at least they still have Brind’Amour; the Vegas Golden Knights are operating without their entire quarantined coaching staff at the moment.
Such is the way of life in the NHL this season. The games must go on. The break-glass-in-case-of-emergency taxi squad is not merely an ornament. It’s a vital part of the operation, as it will demonstrate Thursday night when the Taxicanes take the ice — the Hurricanes’ temporary loss is Steven Lorentz’s immediate gain, making his NHL debut — instead of the full squad that was just getting its skates under itself when the season came to an abrupt halt after only three games.
“It’s what we’re living in,” Brind’Amour said. “At the end of the day you’re just happy it’s behind us, hopefully. That was the biggest apprehension the whole week, was it going to be more guys? Every day, you were just like, what’s going on?”
That’s the one saving grace. This absolutely could have been worse for the Hurricanes: More players missing, players or staff who are actually ill and not merely positive or lightly symptomatic, a cascade of positives leaving the team off the ice for an even longer gap. The Dallas Stars — like Clemson in college football — had the good misfortune to go through this before the season even got going and were able to start from scratch last Friday.
The Hurricanes spent their time away from the rink the way everybody else has for 10 months: virtually. They studied video, did group fitness classes and otherwise conducted their business online instead of on the ice. Jordan Staal is back, the other five are not.
This was supposed to be a two-game series Tuesday-Thursday. The Hurricanes and Lightning will get half of that, and then it’s on to the rest of the season, 52 more games in 100 days, ready or not.
Lightning at Hurricanes
When: 7 p.m., Thursday
Where: PNC Arena, Raleigh
Watch: FSCR
This story was originally published January 27, 2021 at 1:32 PM with the headline "Hurricanes’ home opener has empty feeling after unexpected coronavirus pause."
