Hurricanes Trying Out New Blueliner On Top Power Play

The Carolina Hurricanes have a new face on their top power play unit and it's certainly not one you would have expected.

In the absence of blueliner Shayne Gostisbehere who's going to be out for some time with an upper-body injury, Ty Smith is getting the chance to quarterback the top unit alongside Sebastian Aho, Seth Jarvis, Martin Necas and Andrei Svechnikov.

"That's kind of what his job is," said Carolina coach Rod Brind'Amour following Monday's practice. "He's an offensive defenseman. Kind of very similar player as Ghost. So we're going to give Smitty the first crack there and see if he can do, really, what he's done his whole life."

Smith, 24, actually made his Hurricanes debut Sunday night — his first game back in the NHL in nearly two years — and in that game also quarterbacked the top unit.

Smith played 5:28 of power play time in Sunday's 5-2 win over the New Jersey Devils (the club that drafted him 17th overall in 2018) and had a shot on goal and two individual chances and overall, the team generated seven chances with him out there.

If you thought that was just going to be a temporary move given the last-minute ruling out of Gostisbehere, you'd be wrong as it seems like he'll remain there as he also practiced with the top group on Monday.

Smith is a veteran now of 124 NHL games having also played for both the New Jersey Devils and Pittsburgh Penguins already.

In that span, he's had eight goals and 47 points and of those, 14 came on the power play.

In that time, Smith has also appeared in 115 AHL games where he's had 19 goals and 77 points, of which eight goals and 26 points came on the power play.

Smith will have big shoes to fill in Gostisbehere's absence, given that Ghost was second in the league amongst blueliners for power play scoring.

But even if Smith can't make the cut, the Hurricanes still have some other options such as Brent Burns, Dmitry Orlov or even Sean Walker who have all played on the power play before.