Hurricanes newcomers played well, but one shined brighter than the rest in opening loss

Of all the new faces on display Friday night — six in all in the Carolina Hurricanes’ lineup — none looked better or needed less time to make his introduction than William Carrier.

The free-agent signing, playing in Jesper Fast’s spot alongside Jordan Staal and Jordan Martinook, put the puck neatly on Staal’s stick in the crease for the opening goal of the season after Martinook jarred it loose without an assist for his troubles.

That ended up being the only goal in a 4-1 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning, the absent-minded Hurricanes sunk by a misfiring power play and a Nikita Kucherov hat trick of sorts, with the second and third both into empty nets.

It would be easy to say Carrier stood out by comparison to the rest of the roster, but that line stood on its own.

“That line was good,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “You can read into the rest. I honestly don’t know what I was watching most of that game.”

And it all started so well.

Staal, so often the provider of hard work for the benefit of others, found himself the beneficiary this time, not six minutes into the season. Carrier was signed to play in that spot with Fast out for the foreseeable future, and he couldn’t have fit more snugly. Maybe even too snugly.

Because his ability to retrieve pucks and make plays — and he also nearly tied the score late in the third period before Kucherov put the game away — might be a better fit further up the lineup, especially with the Jesperi Kotkaniemi-Martin Necas-Jack Roslovic line ineffective, although in the players’ defense they didn’t get much time together in the preseason and they were far from alone.

Carrier wasn’t the only newcomer to impress under difficult circumstances. Sean Walker’s game is polished, and the only issue he’ll have playing with Shayne Gostisbehere is that neither is very big. And there was one other huge positive: Frederik Andersen was sharp in goal, especially on a two-save sequence right before Staal’s goal and a stop on Kucherov immediately after.

Then there’s right wing Andrei Svechnikov, perhaps the single most important variable when it comes to determining what the Hurricanes’ ceiling is this year. There’s another level to his game. It’s only a question of whether he can get there, and he was close Friday.

He was arguably the Hurricanes’ best player over the first 40 minutes but failed to convert a wide-open 2-on-1 in the first period — exactly the kind of chance that the Hurricanes desperately need him to finish more often.

You’d take this all-around game from him every night, no question about it, but he wasn’t drafted second overall to be a good all-around winger. To resort to an old political chestnut: It’s the goals, stupid.

“That’s what he can do,” Brind’Amour said. “But we need more than flash from all these guys.”

Combine that with an anemic power play and a typically error-free performance from Andrei Valisevsky in net, and you end up with one goal in a game that felt from early on like a race to two. That’s not all on Svechnikov, of course, but it was the kind of night where top-end skill loomed as the difference and it was. Kucherov sniped the winner for Tampa on the power play before padding his stats in the final three minutes.

It’s unwise to draw too many conclusions from the opening game of the season, but it’s always a little jarring to see one of the season’s pressing questions under such a bright spotlight right off the hop. Especially on a night when the Hurricanes needed more, from him and just about everyone else.

Not Carrier and his linemates, though. If there was a problem with the way he meshed with Staal and Martinook, it might only be that he may not be with them for long.

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