Eric T, Roddy B, and the not-so-curious case of the Carolina Hurricanes

Carolina keeps thriving despite roster turnover, Minnesota's success looks sustainable, and Calgary is turning into a sad little pumpkin.

At a certain point in any aspiring hockey journalist’s career, it all clicks: If you want to spark a conversation with a player that leads to anything other than a sentence or two full of cliches, don’t ask him about himself. You should ask him about literally anything else, preferably his favorite teammate.

This is why player poll stories are a blast, and it’s why I went around asking the Hurricanes to predict the team’s breakout star ahead of the 2021-22 season.

Martin Necas won in a landslide, but I’ll never forget head coach Rod Brind’Amour’s non-answer.

“I can’t answer that,” he said. “That’s a sucker question, right there.”

Necas ended that season with a modest 14 goals and 40 points in 78 games, one point fewer than his shortened 2020-21 season. Was it the biggest failure in the world? Of course not. But I understood why Brind’Amour would’ve been a sucker to answer my question.

Necas, 25, has had a long and winding developmental road since the Canes drafted him No. 12 overall in 2017. They kept him down in the minors perhaps longer than they should’ve to maintain his ELC, then they moved him from his preferred center position to the wing when he finally made the big club.

Admittedly, I’ve always rooted for him on a personal level. He’s a joy to talk to, he’s funny and honest, and he’s been a great sport through plenty of early career disappointments.