Griffin Bryant
Stormy, the Carolina mascot, waves a flag on the ice before the Carolina Hurricanes' home game against the San Jose Sharks in PNC Arena on Friday, Jan. 27, 2023. The Canes came from behind by scoring three unanswered goals and beat the Sharks 5-4 in overtime.
If you haven’t been able to watch either the 2023 Southeast Rookie Showcase or the Carolina Hurricanes 2023 preseason games, there’s one thing you need to know: The Canes have plenty of depth, and most of it comes from their young players. Although the Stanley Cup window for the current squad is now, Carolina will be competitive for years to come thanks to their highly skilled prospects.
Forwards
The Canes’ lack of scoring depth has been put under the microscope for the past couple of seasons, especially after getting swept out of the 2023 playoffs by the Florida Panthers in the Eastern Conference Finals. Although the Canes have brought in left wingers Michael Bunting and Brendan Lemieux to fix the problem, there are still spots in the bottom six for young guys to make their mark.
The one position that’s certainly up for grabs and one that everyone has their eyes on is the fourth-line center spot. Centers Ryan Suzuki and Vasily Ponomarev have played hard all throughout the preseason trying to earn themselves a roster spot. The two young centers have been dialed-in, and their success is one of the main reasons that the Canes rookies went undefeated at the rookie showcase this summer.
Suzuki is one of the older prospects to be featured at Canes training camp. The first-round pick from 2019 has had numerous injury setbacks that have slowed his NHL development, but this might be his year.
When the Canes drafted Suzuki back in 2019, they were looking for scorers, and Suzuki has all the shooting talent you can ask for. He’s improved his defensive play the most; all throughout the preseason, Suzuki showcased his defending skills by breaking up passes, especially on the penalty kill.
Head coach Rod Brind’Amour, a two-time Selke Trophy winner, constantly emphasizes the importance of being a two-way forward. Suzuki’s commitment to improve in this area, plus his nose for goal, gives him his best chance to crack the final roster.
Although Suzuki and Ponomarev have been teammates for the past few months, they have competed just as much against other teams as they have with each other, and Ponomarev refuses to go out quietly. Ponomarev has shown some of the fastest development of the bunch and continues to impress day in and day out. His ability to facilitate the offense whenever he is on the ice makes him an exciting player to watch.
The 2020 second-round pick stood out when playing against other rookies, but a knee injury prevented him from showcasing his talent in any of the preseason games. Being one year younger than Suzuki and having a smaller sample size to look at, it wouldn’t be surprising if Carolina sent Ponomarev to an AHL team for one more year of development.
One player everyone’s been raving about is right wing Felix Unger Sorum. For an 18-year-old drafted just a few months ago, the young Swede has impressed everyone, from fans to coaches. His passing ability is off the charts and he always makes the right reads, creating many assists throughout the preseason. It wasn’t long ago that a young center Seth Jarvis made the team due to an impressive training camp, and Sorum has just as good of a chance as anyone.
Defensemen
The Hurricanes have arguably the best defensemen core in the league, which doesn’t leave any room for a young player to earn a roster spot. Over the offseason, the team brought in defensemen Dmitry Orlov, Tony DeAngelo, Caleb Jones and re-signed Dylan Coghlan, all of whom have significant NHL experience.
It’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility that the Canes run 11 forwards and seven defensemen most nights — that’s what they had on the ice when they won 4-1 in their final preseason matchup against the Nashville Predators.
It wasn’t likely any of the rookies were going to beat out any of the previous Canes defensemen considering last year they led the league in goals for a defensive group, but that didn’t stop them from putting in good performances in the preseason.
Defenseman Domenick Fensore showed off his offensive prowess by running the first-team power play unit on multiple occasions. His exceptional skating and passing ability made him elite at the NCAA level, but being undersized diminishes his effectiveness for the NHL. Even though he’s 5-foot-7, Fensore refused to shy away from the physical nature of hockey, which was encouraging to see.
Fellow defenseman Aleksi Heimosalmi has looked like the best two-way defenseman of the non-NHL bunch. He’s always in the right spot breaking up passing lanes while also joining in on the rush and getting shots on net. The 20-year-old is still young with plenty of time to develop, but the potential is there for. Heimosalmi was sent back on a loan to Assat (Liiga) to give him more opportunity to develop.
Goalies
Similarly to the defensemen, the goalie group for the 2023 season was pretty much set in stone for the Canes. Outside of goaltenders Frederik Andersen, Antti Raanta and Pyotr Kochetkov, the only other goaltender to get significant playing time was Yaniv Perets.
Perets is fresh off an NCAA Championship season with the Quinnipiac Bobcats, where he boasted a 1.49 GAA and 0.931 save percentage. Perets was picked up by Carolina as an undrafted free agent in 2023 but has proven to be worth much more.
In multiple preseason games this season, Perets kept the Canes in the game early on as the forwards and defensemen were getting used to playing with each other for the first time. He made save after save, and he displayed lots of rebound control for a rookie goaltender.
There isn’t enough space on the roster for Perets in the present, but as Andersen and Raanta increase in age, Perets can work on his game even more in Norfolk (ECHL) where he’s been assigned.
What’s next?
As of Oct. 7, the Carolina Hurricanes have 29 players on their training camp roster. This includes 16 forwards, 10 defensemen and three goalies. The Canes will have to decrease the roster size to 23 before opening night Oct. 11 versus Ottawa, which means anticipation is building to see who has and hasn’t made the opening night roster.