With injuries taking a toll on their blue line, the Hurricanes have recalled Danny Biega from Charlotte and the young defenseman will join the team in Montreal.
It is the first recall for the 23-year-old, who is tied for third among Checkers defensemen this season with 14 points (2g, 12a). With the trio of Rasmus Rissanen, Michal Jordan and Ryan Murphy in the NHL, Biega had taken on a bigger role on a young Charlotte blue line, manning the top pairing alongside Trevor Carrick.
The Hurricanes' ailing blue line, which lost Rissanen this past weekend for three-to-four weeks, took another hit last night when John-Michael Liles was taken down by Ottawa's Curtis Lazar and suffered an injury that head coach Bill Peters told The News & Observer "didn't look good". After today's practice, Peters told media that Biega would meet the team for their road contest against the Canadiens.
With Carolina's shortage of defensemen, Biega is expected to make his NHL debut Thursday night in his hometown of Montreal. Should he play, he would join a long list of Checkers who have made their NHL debuts this season. Rookie Patrick Brown made the Hurricanes out of training camp, while Brody Sutter, Justin Shugg, Brendan Woods and Rissanen have all gotten recalled at some point and made their debuts with Carolina. Biega is also following in the footsteps of his older brother Alex, who made his NHL debut with the Vancouver Canucks last month.
The loss of Biega is another blow to the Checkers already depleted defensive corps. The five remaining healthy blue liners include two rookies (Carrick and Dennis Robertson), a player signed to a professional tryout contract (Mike Cornell) and two players who have split their careers between the ECHL and AHL (Beau Schmitz and Austin Levi). Those five have 274 AHL games under their belts combined, with no one appearing in more than 73 career games. Carrick is the only defenseman on the current roster to be consistently in the lineup at the start of the season, with Robertson and Schmitz alternating healthy scratches.
A third-round pick in 2010, Biega spent four years at Harvard, accumulating 85 points (28g, 57a) in 132 games. He also earned several honors in his collegiate career, including ECAC Hockey Best Defensive Defenseman, NCAA East First-Team All-American, unanimous first-team All-Ivy League selection, first-team All-Ivy League, second-team ECAC All-League, New England All-Star selection, as well as being named to the ECAC First All-Star Team, CCM Hockey All-America first team and ECAC Hockey Championship All-Tournament. Biega led all Harvard defensemen in scoring three of his four season and was awarded the John Tudor Memorial Cup as Harvard's Most Valuable Player for his sophomore season.
