If a February weeknight game against the Sabres is ever a must-win, this was for the Canes
Let’s see how much we can throw on a weeknight February game against the last-place team in the Eastern Conference, the kind of game that’s not typically a load-bearing structure in the NHL.
There’s the general state of the Carolina Hurricanes, losers of five of six coming in, returning home from two limp efforts in Canada in a growing state of panic.
Included in that: a pair of goalies who combined for a .756 save percentage in the two losses coming out of the two-week break for the 4 Nations, and a power play that was a tidy 2-for-53 over the past 21 games.
They weren’t just losing, either: “We were losing ugly,” Hurricanes captain Jordan Staal said.
And that was all backdrop to the will-he-or-won’t-he situation surrounding Mikko Rantanen, with the Hurricanes hoping their prize trade addition will sign a contract extension in the next week before they have to contemplate the no-win decision of flipping him for whatever they can get or rolling the dice and risk losing him for nothing.
Desperate times call for desperate measures, which is how Jesperi Kotkaniemi ended up asking Buffalo Sabres center Dylan Cozens to drop the gloves as they lined up for the opening faceoff, a true tribute to the ‘80s on the night the Hurricanes wore their Hartford Whalers throwbacks.
Kotkamiemi pummeled Cozens, the Hurricanes scored twice in the first eight minutes and suddenly, all was right with the world on the way to a 5-2 win. Rantanen had a two-point night. Taylor Hall got his first with the Hurricanes. Staal scored. The Hurricanes even scored on the power play for the third time in 2025.
If they keep playing like this, these Whalers might have a chance to win the Adams Division for the first time since 1987.
It was a little amusing how quickly the pressure seemed to abate, how easily more than a whiff of crisis was blown away. The Sabres looked unprepared for the fury the surly Hurricanes would certainly bring back home with them, and Lindy Ruff seemed to acknowledge as much with a mercifully quickk hookk for Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen only eight minutes in, sending former Hurricanes goalie James Reimer out to absorb the onslaught.
The Hurricanes needed this, not only because of what they left behind, but what’s coming up. Things get tougher this weekend with a Reverse Alberta, hosting the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday and the Calgary Flames on Sunday. The Hurricanes had only this game to get back on the right path.
“We talk about riding the wave when you’re winning, but you can ride the wave when you’re losing, too,” Staal said. “It’s tough to get off.”
The good feelings certainly extended to Rantanen, who assisted on the second goal and scored the third — one point shy of his production in his first nine games with the Hurricanes — prompting chants of “Moose” and “Mikko” from a crowd that understood the role it needed to play.
Rantanen really has yet to get his feet on the ground here, still processing the trade a month ago from the only NHL team he’d known, which makes any hesitancy in committing almost a decade of his life to a place he barely knows totally understandable. The same goes for his slow start in a Hurricanes uniform, if not a Whalers jersey.
For both Rantanen and Hall, Thursday was a step forward.
“When you’re settling in and there’s so much expected, it’s just the only way you really feel like you’re doing stuff is if you’re contributing that way,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “And (Rantanen and Hall) both did tonight in the win, so I think hopefully that will ease their minds a little bit so they can just free up and go play.”
The reception certainly acknowledged that not only was this more the Rantanen fans were expecting, but one the fans hope will choose to stay.
These Hurricanes can stick around, too. As much as you can consider a February game against the Sabres a must-win, this was one. They’ll put the Whalers jerseys and “Brass Bonanza” and Pucky the Whale back on the shelf until next year. Everything else, they’ll want to run back Saturday and Sunday.
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This story was originally published February 27, 2025 at 9:47 PM with the headline "If a February weeknight game against the Sabres is ever a must-win, this was for the Canes."
