Projecting the Carolina Hurricanes' Opening Night Roster

We're now less than three weeks from the start of the NHL season. Teams are finalizing their rosters and signing their RFAs, and players are beginning their training camps and gearing up for pre-season action. The Carolina Hurricanes had some roster upheaval this summer, be it in the departure of Dougie Hamilton and Alex Nedeljkovic, or in the additions of Ethan Bear, Tony DeAngelo, and the successful offer sheet for Jesperi Kotkaniemi, not to mention an entirely new goaltending tandem signed in free agency. This is a very different-looking Canes team from what we saw go to the final 8 in last season's playoffs. Whether or not it's a better team is hard to say, but the important pieces are all still present. Let's see how their roster shakes out, starting with the forwards:

Nino Niederreiter - Sebastian Aho - Teuvo Teravainen

Andrei Svechnikov - Jesperi Kotkaniemi - Martin Necas

Derek Stepan - Jordan Staal - Jesper Fast

Josh Leivo - Vincent Trocheck - Jordan Martinook

Steven Lorentz

Stefan Noesen

Dominik Bokk

The Canes have an extremely deep team at forward this year. All four of these lines can run on any given night and be successful. There are also enough skilled pieces in the mix for coach Rod Brind'Amour to mix and match as the situation dictates. The biggest uncertainty is Jesperi Kotkaniemi, who showed flashes of excellence during his time in Montreal but never did so with consistency. The Canes are paying him a lot of money, so expect to see him start as the 2C. However, if things don't work out, captain Jordan Staal is more than capable of jumping back into that spot.

On defence things are less secure, with a lot of question marks in a lot of positions:

Jacob Slavin - Brett Pesce

Brady Skjei - Ethan Bear

Ian Cole - Tony DeAngelo

Brendan Smith

Joey Keane

Maxime Lajoie

With the injury to Jake Gardiner keeping him sidelined for the entire 2021-2022 season, the Canes have a lot of uncertainty with how their defensive pieces will fit into place. Between that and the departure of Dougie Hamilton, the Canes' blueline is a bit of a house of cards. Can Brett Pesce handle the workload of a #1RD, or will the younger Ethan Bear need to take over that spot? Bear himself had a great rookie season, but a much less great sophomore season in 2021. Can he bounce back and find consistency in his game? Can Tony DeAngelo keep things civil off the ice and stick with this team going forward? There are lots of ways this group of defenders could go wrong, but it's also possible they succeed as expected. Only time will tell.

In net, a group of new faces are arriving in Carolina to replace the team's entire goaltending trio from last year:

Freddie Andersen

Antti Raanta 

Alex Lyon

Beck Warm

The tandem of Andersen and Raanta is one of the more interesting storylines going into the '21-'22 season. Both of these players have shown they can be excellent netminders, but both also have a long history of injuries and inconsistent play. In theory, the combination of the two should ensure that one is always healthy at any given time, but should both suffer injuries at once there is little the Canes can do to fill the void. Alex Lyon has struggled to find his game at the professional level since his first appearance with the Philadelphia Flyers. Because of that, Beck Warm gets an honorable mention here. Warm has only played one season in the AHL but posted some respectable numbers (14GP, 2.74GAA, .914sv%, 2SO). He's still only 22-years old, making him far too young to be expected to carry a heavy NHL workload, but if the two starters go down and Lyon can't cut it, Warm may get the call-up out of necessity.

What do you think of this Hurricanes' roster, and what would you change?

Photo credit: Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports