The Carolina Hurricanes are back on the road, to face the Ottawa Senators on Tuesday (7:30 p.m. ET; RDS2, TSN5, FS-CR, NHL.TV), after playing their first two home games against the New York Rangers on Friday (3-2 win) and the Philadelphia Flyers on Sunday (4-3 loss).
Because of the North Carolina State Fair, the Hurricanes opened the season with six consecutive road games and went 1-3-2. Now they play three of their next four on the road.
Although the Hurricanes’ 2-4-2 start is disappointing, the silver lining to their road-heavy schedule is they’ve had plenty of time to get to know each other outside of the rink.
“We’ve got a lot of new faces here, some young guys, so it’s good to do some team dinners and sort of branch off and go in different groups to dinner with guys and just spend more time together,” right wing and Western New York native, Lee Stempniak said.
Stempniak, 33, is one of those new faces after signing a two-year contract worth $2.5 million per season with the Hurricanes as an unrestricted free agent July 1, but he has a lot of experience at this. The Hurricanes are his 10th NHL team, two behind Mike Sillinger’s League record of playing for 12 teams.
Skating on a line with Jeff Skinner and Victor Rask, Stempniak is off to a good start with four goals and two assists in eight games.
“I feel pretty comfortable being a new person,” he said. “As I’ve gotten older, you kind of know people that played with other people and you turn out to have some mutual friends, so you have a good feel for the people you’re going to meet. It’s a matter of being yourself and bringing your personality. For the most part everyone in hockey is a good person and people tend get along really well.”
(Reprinted with permission of NHL.com)
