Hurricanes players, coaches appreciate where they’re at, but say job is only half done

Many of the players on the Carolina Hurricanes’ current roster have been around long enough to say they’ve been to a conference final series — many of them with the Canes in 2019.

Nine players on the Canes’ current roster skated with the team that year in the Eastern Conference final, falling to the Boston Bruins in a clinical 4-0 sweep. At last a half-dozen others skated for teams who made it to a conference final before joining this year’s group, which will skate in the Eastern Conference final against the Florida Panthers beginning Thursday.

So, ho hum, another conference final, right?

Not so much.

“I remember some of the veteran guys on the 2019 team, and (coach) Rod (Brind’Amour) saying you don’t know when or even if you’ll get back to the conference finals,” Canes defenseman Brett Pesce said Tuesday. “We kind of learned that the hard way, so I think just appreciating where you are not taking a day for granted will be the key. We owe this to Raleigh and North Carolina.”

They “owe it to Raleigh”? It’s no shock that Pesce feels that way. He’s a New York native and played college hockey in New Hampshire, but all of Pesce’s professional hockey has been played in North Carolina. He had a brief stay in Charlotte with the Checkers in the AHL before a quick promotion to the Hurricanes, for whom he’s been a mainstay since 2015.

“It makes me just appreciate just everything this team has been through,” Pesce said. “I’ve kind of started from the bottom and here we are now. It’s cool. Raleigh has a special place in my heart and to be here (in the conference final) again is super cool.”

Another of the Canes’ American-born defenders, Jaccob Slavin has followed a nearly identical path to Pesce, playing first at the NCAA Division I level before a brief stint in Charlotte and then a quick promotion to the Hurricanes, in the same season as Pesce.

“Anything to help continue to build that momentum is good,” Slavin said. “And then you get to something like the Eastern Conference final, (the fans) are going nuts already, everyone’s excited about it. People I talk to outside the rink are excited about it … continuing to build the community we have here in Raleigh. Hopefully we have a better showing than the last time we were in the Eastern Conference final.”

As Slavin was also quick to point out, reaching a conference final is great, but it’s also not the ultimate goal.

“We’re close, but we’re also only halfway,” Slavin said. “We have eight wins, but we still have eight more to go, so it’s a long path and it’s definitely not going to get any easier. It’s exciting to be where we’re at, but there’s a lot of work to do still.”

A new tradition?

There’s something unique about this year’s collection of NHL final four teams: None of them has an average daily high temperature below 70 degrees. Indeed, Raleigh is the coldest of the bunch, at about 71 degrees. Dallas follows at 78, Las Vegas at 80 and Miami/Sunrise at a balmy 84.

Some observers in “traditional” hockey markets have found that quirk a bit unsettling.

Not the Canes.

“It speaks a lot to what those markets have done,” Slavin said. “Look at Tampa, the last three years going to the Stanley Cup (final) every year and building their market down there. All the teams that are the last ones standing right now, speaks to what they’re trying to do, and how they’re engaged with the game. It’s cool to see, it’s great for the game, building the game across all different demographics.”

Brind’Amour agreed, tracing the national growth to a specific event in 1988.

“It says a lot about how the game has grown, number one, that we brought it to places and fans that never would have thought 20 or 30 years ago, you wouldn’t have envisioned this,” Brind’Amour said. “You can trace it back to, in my opinion, in the late ’80s when (Wayne) Gretzky got traded to L.A. I think it spawned a whole new awareness for people in the States and hockey, and now here we are. It’s not surprising these teams are good, the whole league is good. It’s just where they’ve put these teams. Hockey’s a great game, people love it, as we know.”

While a veteran hockey market compared with Las Vegas, Raleigh is still the second-newest of the bunch at 25 years. The Minnesota North Stars relocated to Dallas in 1993, while Florida was awarded an expansion franchise to start playing that same season. Vegas’ first season in the NHL was in 2017.

“There’s no doubt things have changed for the better,” Brind’Amour said. “We’ve grown as a team, a community, as everything. I think it’s been a real positive growth.”

Staying cool

While staying cool in any of the remaining cities among the NHL’s final four may be a challenge in the physical, sun-on-their-neck sense, the ability to remain cool and calm under pressure — and while being agitated — on the ice will be paramount for any team’s success.

With Florida Panthers players like Matthew Tkachuk and Radko Gudas — whose considerable talents include among them “Grade-A pest” — coming to town for the Eastern Conference final, it will be important for the Hurricanes to follow the lead of a player like Slavin, whose ability to remain calm and play tough without retaliation rubs off on the rest of the team.

“It helps, I mean, Slavin against anybody is going to help,” Brind’Amour said.

Asked specifically about Tkachuk, Brind’Amour added: “I’m sure he gets under your skin a little, but if there’s a guy that’s pretty calm and cool about that, I mean, Jaccob doesn’t get rattled. We’re going to have to be dialed in on that and play the game the way we need to play, whistle to whistle and not get caught up in that stuff, because that’s obviously not to our advantage.”

Slavin wasn’t worried about the potential for post-whistle activity, either, with Tkachuk or anyone else.

At least, not for himself.

“He’s going to be the type of player he is,” Slavin said. “He’s a really good player, you just try not to get dragged into any of it. I know for myself, that’s fairly easy, but yeah, it’s going to be fun. He’s a fun player to play against and he’s effective at what he does. We have to make sure we stay disciplined against it.”

As for the rest of the group?

“This whole group, we’ve seen it in other series, it didn’t, that stuff doesn’t rattle us,” Brind’Amour said, “and I think because of the people we have in there — Jaccob’s one of them, Skjei’s one of them, Pesce — none of these guys, they have a job to do and you know they’re going to try and do it.”