RALEIGH, N.C. — When the national television schedule came out before the season, the Carolina Hurricanes got the usual cold shoulder, even from the NHL’s new partners. ABC and ESPN each grabbed one game in March, and TNT passed entirely.
There’s nothing new about that for the Hurricanes, of course, and it’s the kind of thing fans complain about — disrespect! — even though they just end up complaining about all the things the national announcers get wrong about the team and franchise and players and Triangle and so on anyway.
So it was both a mild shock and genuine tribute that, when the NHL started rescheduling games during the erstwhile Olympic break, TNT added Wednesday night’s game between the Hurricanes and Florida Panthers — who might be two of the best teams in the league but were all but ignored by NBC in the old TV deal.
The Peacock would never: Two Southeast Division teams? Ha. Surely the Flyers or Blackhawks were available, even if they were so far below .500 they couldn’t see a playoff spot.
By the time it was over, TNT had to feel pretty good about its first trip to Raleigh, even if the Hurricanes did not.
All the network got was the most watchable and entertaining game of the season, a heavyweight battle between two legit Stanley Cup contenders, full of dazzling individual play and bad blood that came just short of actual blood and featured two goals in the final 65 seconds — but neither by the Hurricanes, who led with 49 seconds left only to lose 3-2 in overtime.
It felt like April right from the start. Or maybe even May.
This one night made up for all the execrable games between the Hurricanes and Panthers back in the old Southleast days, two nothing teams going nowhere, each neutral-zone trapping their way through the season. These two teams are clearly going somewhere, and they may have to get past each other to get there.
“I wouldn’t doubt it,” Hurricanes captain Jordan Staal said. “We were definitely feeling the atmosphere. It was a big-time game, two good teams battling it out. That first period was very quick. It was a grind. Those are the games you love to play in. it’s too bad we’re on the wrong end of it but we’ll find a way to create a better game next time.”
If so, bring it on.
This was lit from the start, with the Panthers taking runs at Andrei Svechnikov and Svechnikov responding in kind, shaking off a cheap shot by Owen Tippett to run Sam Bennett head-first into the wall in front of the Florida bench. Then Patric Hornqvist tried to send Svechnikov into the Hurricanes’ open bench door, earning the Hurricanes two full minutes of two-man advantage.
The Hurricanes failed to score five-on-three — always a cardinal sin, but especially so with 120 seconds of it — but Teuvo Teravainen caught Sergei Bobrovsky napping with a tight-angle shot at the end of the first period. Bobrovsky’s usually good for one clanger a game, and that was it.
Later, Mason Marchment — whose father changed the course of Shane Willis’ career with a predatory elbow to the head — caught Vincent Trocheck with head down across the middle and sent Trocheck spinning one direction and his helmet another. Trocheck picked up the penalty, for continuing to play without his helmet.
The Panthers finally answered in the second with a stunning bit of individual skill from Aleksander Barkov, who dragged the puck behind his back to turnstile poor Brady Skjei before flipping a backhand through Frederik Andersen’s legs. A contender for goal of the season, pure filth that set the stage for a third-period showdown that started with a Tony DeAngelo goal and ended with Andersen holding off a relentless Florida barrage until 49 seconds were left and the Panthers scored with their net empty.
It took only 16 seconds of overtime for Aaron Ekblad to sneak behind Teravainen and secure the bonus point.
“Clearly we’ve got to keep playing,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “We can’t try to hang on. It never works. That’s not our style anyway.”
Regardless of the result, it’s not hard to imagine these teams seeing each other again down the road. That may even be what DeAngelo and Radko Gudas were discussing when they were yelling at each other from their respective benches at one point. DeAngelo got the last word with a blast from the point early in the third to give the Hurricanes a lead that didn’t hold up, but it feels like a conversation that’s far from over.
The next chapter might also be on national television.
