The Carolina Hurricanes are a young team. The team’s average age of approximately 25 ties them for the youngest of the 16 teams that qualified for the 2019 Stanley Cup playoffs.
When the team plays its first playoff game since 2009 Thursday against the Washington Capitals, the Canes’ active roster will feature 12 players who have never skated in a Stanley Cup playoff game. That includes a good chunk of the team’s young core, including forwards Sebastian Aho and Andrei Svechnikov and defensemen Jaccob Slavin and Brett Pesce.
There is, however, one exception to that rule among the Canes’ young guns. At 24, forward Teuvo Teravainen would be considered part of that young core. He also comes into the postseason with some of the most playoff experience on the roster.
Teravainen, who came over to Carolina in an offseason trade with the Chicago Blackhawks in 2016, played in 25 playoff games with Chicago, including posting four goals and 10 points in 18 games during the Hawks’ 2015 Stanley Cup run. Three years later, he gets to play playoff hockey again.
“It’s the most fun time to play hockey,” Teravainen said. “Games matter a lot, there’s a lot of physical games and fans are in the game. It’s beautiful.”
Teravainen brings more than postseason experience into Carolina’s first-round series with the Washington Capitals. The Helsinki native is coming off a career season with 21 goals and 76 points.
After being brought in based on his youth and potential, Teravainen has seen his point totals increase in each of his three seasons in Carolina, to the point that he’s now one of the team’s top scorers, ranked in the top 40 in the NHL in points and tied for 18th in assists with 55.
“I just feel like I’ve been working hard every year,” Teravainen said. “I’ve been getting better every year. I don’t know what happened [this season]. It’s been very good, but I feel like I could still get better.”
Teravainen’s leap in production afforded the Hurricanes a more balanced lineup this season. For most of this first two seasons and the first half of this one, he played alongside fellow Finnish forward Sebastian Aho, the Canes’ top scorer.
In January, however, shortly after the Canes acquired forward Nino Niederreiter from the Minnesota Wild, head coach Rod Brind’Amour made a switch. He lined up Aho with Niederreiter and captain Justin Williams and put Teravainen with forwards Lucas Wallmark and Micheal Ferland.
Once forward Jordan Staal returned from a lengthy absence due to a concussion, he eventually paired with Teravainen and a rotation of Ferland and rookie Andrei Svechnikov to give the Canes two reliable scoring lines.
“I think it’s important to have depth throughout your lineup,” Brind’Amour said. “I think that afforded us a different look for sure. [Aho], [Williams] and [Niedereitter] carried the load for a big portion there. Then when [Staal] came back, suddenly being able to throw [Teravainen] there gave us more depth, more threats out there. It’s tough to be a one-line team. It just is, and you have to have production everywhere.”
On Jan. 21, the Hurricanes rewarded Teravainen, then a pending restricted free agent, for his success. The Canes inked him to a five-year extension that will pay him $5.4 million per year through the 2023-24 season.
For some players, it would be fair to have concerns about their level of play dropping off after getting the long-term security of a big contract extension. Not Teravainen, who responded to the trust and confidence from the organization with 11 goals and 37 points in 34 games after signing his extension.
“Pretty exciting moment,” Teravainen said. “I feel like you get the trust and people trust in you. That’s what makes you feel pretty good. After, I feel like I’ve just been kind of myself and just enjoying the time.”
Now, for the third season out of his six-year career, Teravainen will take the ice for the most exciting part of the hockey season, the Stanley Cup playoffs.
“This is it,” Teravainen said. “There’s always pressure and people are watching what you do out there, but it’s fun. This is the most fun time, so at the same time we have to enjoy it.”
The last two times Teravainen made the playoffs, he was a supporting player, helping supplement the production of Blackhawks stalwarts such as Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane, who powered the Blackhawks to three Stanley Cup wins in six years.
Now, he’ll be relied on as a key contributor, looking to draw upon the lessons he learned from experienced postseason performers during his time in Chicago.
“I learned a lot,” Teravainen said. “Great players, easy to play with, easy to learn just how they handle the pressure and those tight games. It’s amazing.”
Teravainen knows that while playoff hockey is another level up in terms of intensity, physicality and how much the games mean, at the same time it’s the same game most of these players have been playing their whole lives.
The Canes’ many postseason newcomers may be nervous going into their first playoff series, but there is no advice or words of wisdom that can substitute for getting out there and experiencing it for themselves.
“It’s kind of nervous to go to your first playoff game,” Teravainen said. “But at the same time, it’s the same hockey. It’s the same hockey, same players out there. It’s pretty nice, but you have to go and [experience] it yourself.”
The Canes face an uphill battle against the defending Stanley Cup champions in the first round, particularly given their lack of playoff experience. However, playing with a lack of external expectations can make a team dangerous, and Carolina comes into the playoffs red hot.
While the Canes lack a huge volume of playoff experience, they do have a few seasoned vets who have “been there, done that.” In Teravainen, they have a young player eager to keep proving himself after a career season as well.
Every team needs an X factor going into a playoff series, and in Teuvo Teravainen, the Carolina Hurricanes could have exactly that.
