All Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon wants is that sweet, sweet offence

Remember that old saying, “offence wins games, but defence wins championships?”

Yeah, well, that take hasn’t aged very well when it comes to the National Hockey League.

In the Eastern Conference, the formula seems pretty simple. If you want to be good, you have to score goals. The top three teams, the Tampa Bay Lightning, Toronto Maple Leafs, and Washington Capitals also rank first, second, and third in goals for.

And then you have the Carolina Hurricanes. The club has had mixed results to start the year, but their 72 goals rank last in the conference.

In the spirit of making the NHL fun again, team owner Tom Dundon has made it clear that this trend will not continue if he has his way.

“I’ve got to have more offence, I want to lose 5-4, not 2-1,” he told the Triangle Business Journal. “If we lose 5-4, I’ll at least have fun.”

“We won’t be drafting defence in the first round as long as I’m here,” he said.

Those comments are pretty interesting considering the organization traded both Elias Lindholm and Jeff Skinner in Dundon’s first off-season at the helm. Those two have combined for 38 goals during the 2018-19 season, in other words, more than half of what the entire Hurricanes roster has produced in that same span.

Credit where credit is due, though. Dundon is a man committed to having a good time. And despite the club’s inability to light the lamp so far, they have been able to capture the attention of fans with their must-watch post-win celebrations.

What says “fun” more than hockey players pretending to be dominoes? Classic.

I don’t know how long it will take for the Hurricanes to turn it around and become one of the NHL’s elite teams, but under Dundon’s control, it sounds like they’ll have a good time — even if it takes a long time.

More NHL coverage from Yahoo Sports Canada