Brody Sutter is heading to the NHL once again. For him, the timing couldn’t be better.
After making his NHL debut at Madison Square Garden last week, the 23-year-old center is headed to his hometown of Calgary, where the Carolina Hurricanes are preparing to face the Flames on Thursday. After receiving the news following Checkers practice at Extreme Ice Center on Wednesday morning, he already had some important arrangements on his mind.
“Hopefully I can find some tickets on such short notice,” he said.
The extended Sutter family, initially made famous by his father, Duane, and his five uncles who also played in the NHL, is headquartered in nearby Viking, Alberta. As such, he was not able to give a numerical estimate on how much work he has to do before game time.
“Requests? I’ll get a ton,” he said. “How many I’ll actually get, I’m not sure. I’ll get some for family and my billets in Lethbridge, and after that I’ll see how many I can find.”
At the end of last season, Sutter, a third-year pro, spoke of trying to “get myself in the picture to start getting some games up top.” In the season’s first two weeks, he should have at least two.
“I thought I had a really good camp and opened some eyes,” he said Wednesday. “Obviously there are a lot injuries up top right now and that’s leading to some opportunities for guys. You’ve just got to go up and play your game and try to make an impression.”
Sutter thought he played well in just under six minutes of ice time in last week’s debut.
“I didn’t play a lot because they were a lot of special teams, but it was a good first game to get my feet wet,” he said. “I thought our line created some chances in the first two periods before they shortened the bench a bit in the third.”
Sutter, who did not miss a Checkers game during his previous recall, scored his first goal of the season in a 2-1 loss to Grand Rapids on Friday – the same day as his reassignment.
With brothers Eric and Jordan Staal injured, the Hurricanes’ top two centers of late have been a pair of Sutter’s former Checkers teammates in Riley Nash and Victor Rask. Sutter figures to make it three of four should he play Thursday. In their most recent game, a 3-1 loss in Winnipeg on Tuesday, the Hurricanes only used 11 natural forwards, with ex-Checkers defenseman Ryan Murphy playing his first-ever game up front.
The Checkers, who did not have an extra forward at Wednesday’s practice, may now need to find one should Carolina not return a player before they play their next games in Iowa this Friday and Saturday. They could also follow the Hurricanes’ lead by dressing seven defensemen.
