We made it, folks. It’s less than two weeks to Opening Night, there’ll be an actual hockey game involving some NHL players by the end of the weekend, and before we know it we’ll be marveling at a banner being hung in the Lenovo Center rafters—which may look different if promotional materials sent out to fans and photo shoots are any clue:
As things begin Thursday and members of the media will get their first real chance to chat with members of the team before things kick into high gear, here are a couple of the storylines to keep your eye on as they take the Wake Competition Center ice.
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Alexander Nikishin Missing
It shouldn’t be a surprise following the blurb that Pierre LeBrun dropped earlier this week that Nikishin won’t be on the ice to start camp. Truthfully, without any sort of contract to play, there’s no reason for him to risk injury and get on the ice.
So after the fanfare to get him over from Russia to his debut in the 2025 playoffs and then a good but not great rookie season, the two sides continue to be at a stalemate. It’s one of those situations where you truly see both sides. Nikishin and his camp see some of new contracts that young players have been signing and feel they should be getting commiserate value. The Hurricanes have the leverage though, cause no other team can sign him and he couldn’t plead his case to an arbitrator. Perhaps if he had come over to the United States earlier he’d be in a position to where he could do that, instead the Canes are understandably in a mode of not wanting to sink a lot of money when the potential is there but hasn’t fully shown itself.
As for the desire of the Nikishin side to get a trade, again the Canes have most of the leverage. While they know he may not be a great fit for them they know his value and aren’t going to just give up on him. The sole leverage the Nikishin camp has is not having any promise to sign long term to a new team, thus decreasing his value.
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What does this mean now that hockey is actually starting? Really, not much. As much hype as Nikishin had coming in, no one a) expected the team to trade for K’Andre Miller last summer and b) that turn out to be one of the best moves they could have made. The Canes’ blue line looks more solid than it did when Nikishin arrived, and thus there are several young defensemen who’ll be battling to take that spot as well as depth pieces the Canes signed. We’ll see if a deadline forces movement, because in the end Nikishin loses in that he’s in the United States and not earning anything.
Stable Roster
Besides Nikishin how stable is the Canes roster? They lost all of one person from last year’s Cup winning team—Frederik Andersen who is already out with injury for Edmonton. They filled that spot from within as Pyotr Kochetkov comes back to the team fully healed from lower body surgery this past winter and with the chance in the last year of his deal to really cash in—either with the Canes or someone else as he’ll be a UFA next year. Beyond that, everyone that lifted the Cup for the Canes is back, and this is reflected in the Training Camp roster released by the team on Wednesday.
Camp is going to see two groups of players take the ice, and there’s no mixing of the groups. One group is your defending Cup Champs, the other is the group of players that will likely start the season in either Greensboro or Chicago.
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So, the only chance players will have to really show what they can do with the main players is before and during the four Pre-Season games. On those days, the camp changes from the major/minor league rosters to game/non-game skaters. That’s likely where we’ll get some sort of clue of any player that has impressed.
Competition for open spots
Despite the amount of stability, the fact remains that there is at least one open spot available to players to start the year, and perhaps two depending on what happens with Nikishin.
The spot is the one belonging to Seth Jarvis. While he’s been spotted on the ice doing some drills before formal camp, there’s still every indication he’ll miss the first couple months of the season so his shoulder can finally be 100%. After a performance that won him a spot in the Four Nations, the Olympics, and hero of the Stanley Cup Game Two, he’s earned the right now to sit back and make sure he’s 100% for hopefully another long run.
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Thus, the question is how the lines will be shaken up while Jarvis recovers? Will the team bring up a Bradley Nadeau to give some time, build a true enforcer fourth line with the likes of Nicholas Deslauriers, give Jesperi Kotkaniemi one last real chance to impress so they may be able to fetch a good price for him on the trade market, or all of the above? It also makes one wonder how the lines will be constructed, as Jarvis had been shuffled between the Aho and the Staal lines, and it’s difficult to see the Stankoven line being broken up at least to start.
Short lead up
If you’re thinking that we’re going from zero to hockey in a very short time, you’re not wrong. This is going to be the first season of the 84 game schedule. This was done to bring the NHL back to the setup where you play your division four times, the other division three, and the other conference twice. To commit to playing two more regular season games the players asked for concessions in the preseason which—my guess is—the owners weren’t too upset about giving up.
This means a much shorter Training Camp, two less preseason games, and—much to the dismay of coach Rod Brind’Amour—no more fitness test.
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Joking aside, we’ve seen the result of a reduced camp and preseason in the other big contact sport—the NFL—and while you can’t blame the players for wanting to reduce the grind, you can’t help but to think it’ll hit the Hurricanes the hardest of all the teams because of how late they played AND they were spending the time celebrating their Cup win. It’ll be interesting to hear how Brind’Amour speaks of the drills and camp with significantly less time to get his team ready to defend their crown.
The short leadup is probably also going to lead to a rush of information once camp is over. Normally the end of camp carries a four or five day break before the season opens, but this season the Canes play their last preseason game on Saturday, September 26th then open the season on Tuesday, September 29th. Thus once the final horn sounds next Saturday, expect the social media build to be fast and furious.
Are you ready for the season to begin?
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