The Washington Capitals will strive for a better start to the season than what the Carolina Hurricanes were able to produce this week.
The teams meet Friday night in Raleigh, N.C., where the Capitals will play their season opener.
The spotlight has shined on the Hurricanes for months since they won their second Stanley Cup championship. Now, it’s time to move on after a night filled with emotion and celebration prior to a 1-0 overtime loss to the Florida Panthers on Tuesday.
“They made it hard on us, and then when we did have the opportunities, we beat it up,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “We were not used to that kind of pressure. You just haven’t seen it in practice or even in preseason.”
For the Hurricanes, the reality of the new season has now hit after all the festivities have died down.
“Here we go again,” captain Jordan Staal said. “We’re excited about the new challenge.”
Washington will be geared up for its chance to put a damper on the Hurricanes, their Metropolitan Division rivals.
Capitals star forward Alex Ovechkin sat out during the preseason with a lower-body ailment, but he plans to be on the ice for the opener.
“I think we’re all excited,” Ovechkin said. “Our first game is going to be against Stanley Cup champs. It’s going to be a good battle for us.”
Ovechkin, 41, is embarking on his 22nd NHL season. He played in all 82 games last season, posting a team-high 32 goals plus 32 assists.
“I expect O to be O, but I also understand where he’s at in his career,” Capitals coach Spencer Carbery said of monitoring his player’s workload. “It’s my job to help him along, whether it’s deployment, minutes, power play deployment, all that stuff.”
The Capitals are coming off a disappointing season. With a 43-30-9 record, they narrowly missed out on the playoffs, ending a two-year stretch of playing in the postseason.
They re-tooled their roster by adding forwards Alex Tuch and Jordan Kyrou in a pair of trades and signing forward Boone Jenner and defenseman Vincent Desharnais.
Still, much of the focus falls on Ovechkin — the league’s all-time leading goal-scorer at 929 and counting — as a new season begins.
“I expect him to be up and running fairly quickly and up to game speed,” Carbery said. “… He’ll be flying out there and full of energy and jump and leading the charge.”
The Hurricanes played nearly 65 minutes without scoring in Tuesday’s opener, finally succumbing when the Panthers scored with 4.3 seconds to play in overtime.
Carolina generated only 15 shots on goal and went 0-for-6 on power plays. The Hurricanes never had more than seven shots in a period.
“There wasn’t much going on beyond the power plays and penalty kills,” Staal said. “I thought the penalty kills were good, and I thought the power play could have executed better. It was just kind of a muckfest at 5-on-5.”
While the season will be several days old before the Capitals play for the first time, it will begin a hectic stretch. They have a quick turnaround to visit the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday evening.
