About last night: Rookies lead the way in wild win

Well, that was… fun? The Hurricanes showed their moxy Sunday night in an 8-5 win over the New York Rangers, extending their season-opening point streak to three games. The Canes came back to win despite trailing four times, including 2-0 less than six minutes into the game.

You might have heard about this, but rookie forward Andrei Svechnikov scored his first NHL goal, and he was hardly the only rookie to contribute. You might have also heard about his but the team performed a, we’ll say, interesting celebration after the game. Let’s dive into the action.

This is a resilient bunch

As mentioned above, the Canes came back from four deficits, including one of two goals. Everytime the Rangers punched, the Canes punched back. The Rangers took a 2-0 lead less than six minutes into the game, then the Canes tied it up by the time there was just under six minutes left in the period with goals from Warren Foegele and Jordan Martinook.

The Rangers took a 5-4 lead in the third period, and then the Canes tied it up less than a minute later, and added three more unanswered goals (more on that in a bit). The Canes answered the bell everytime they got hit in the mouth, and as head coach Rod Brind’Amour said after the game, there was never a sense that the Canes were out of it.

That’s a good feeling.

Rookies get the job done

The Canes’ eight goals came from seven different players. Three of them are rookies. Foegele had two goals in the game, Svechnikov had his first and Lucas Wallmark also joined the fun.

When the Rangers took the aforementioned third-period lead, it was Wallmark who tied the game.

Svechnikov scored the game winner with a nice redirection, and Foegele added an insurance tally to put it to bed.

Not only did the Canes answer the bell in the third period, it was three players who have yet to play a full season in the NHL that rung it back. Fun fact, Svechnikov is the first player born in the 2000’s to score an NHL goal. I’m 22, and that even makes me feel old.

Let’s have some fun

Seriously, the post game celebration was awesome. If you missed it, first of all, why haven’t you seen it yet? In lieu of the traditional stick salute, the Canes lined up at center ice, performed a Skol clap led by captain Justin Williams, and then skated full speed down the ice and jumped into the boards in a near-perfect imitation of Svechnikov’s goal celebration.

Hurricanes Manager of Communications and Team Services Pace Sagester tweeted after the game that the celebration was Williams’ idea, which makes it even better. A unique tradition like that is exactly what a young team needs, and should get the fans further invested in this team. As Williams tweeted after the game, sports are supposed to be fun. Watching this young group embrace that philosophy is going to be a lot of fun.