Hurricanes don’t have McDavid, they have Martinook. Right now, that’s almost as good
Not that Akira Schmid had much of a chance coming in cold off the bench, but he had no shot with Jordan Martinook bearing down on him on the right wing. There are nights when everything feels right, and there are hot streaks, and then there’s Martinook in this series, a level of heat science has yet to adequately define.
Of course he scored. Of course he zinged it past Schmid like someone who routinely scores 50 goals in a season, not a career-high 15. There’s confidence radiating off Martinook like a cartoon ghost. Everything he touches turns to goals.
The question of who is going to replace the scoring the Carolina Hurricanes are missing without Andrei Svechnikov, Max Pacioretty and Teuvo Teravainen has an unlikely answer, in this series at least. Martinook’s goal was his third point of the night in a 6-1 rout Tuesday, putting himself in the same sentence with Connor McDavid this postseason.
The Hurricanes scored four goals on six shots in a franchise-record 5:20 to chase Vitek Vanecek and take full control of this series, and Martinook had an assist during that run, plus an assist on the Martin Necas goal that made it 1-1, and then scored the sixth himself.
At one point, he was credited with a fourth point, an assist on Jesper Fast’s goal, but that was later removed upon review, knocking him down to a pedestrian nine points in the series. Only two Hurricanes players have ever had more, and no one’s ever posted four straight multi-point games in the playoffs before Martinook. He has almost two-thirds as many points in this series as he’s had in four full seasons during his career (13, 13, 15, 15). Only one player in history has ever had more points in a series after going scoreless in the previous one — Lanny McDonald.
It’s an incredible heater, the kind of thing you’d expect from, say, Sebastian Aho (now) or Eric Staal (in Devils series passim), not a guy who was on waivers in October, even if only strictly for salary-cap reasons. The Hurricanes didn’t want to lose him, which is why they sent him through on the day he was least likely to be claimed, because even if his offense wasn’t exactly irreplaceable, his demeanor and work ethic were essential.
“He’s one of those players who a lot of time doesn’t get a lot of recognition for the work he puts in,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “It’s the nature of the game. We always look at the guys who score and put up points. They’re the guys who get all the talk. These other guys who do all the work sometimes get forgotten. I don’t think his game has changed at all to people who watch him all the time. The puck’s going in right now.”
Still, this incredible run is not entirely unforeseen, either. This scoring streak started with a scoreless game, the final game of the first round against the New York Islanders, when Martinook was everywhere, in the heart of nearly every play even as the Hurricanes struggled through two periods, but especially in as they played a near-perfect third to force overtime.
He went unrewarded then. Not now.
“That whole series, I felt good about my game,” Martinook said. “I was around it. It just wasn’t going in. I don’t think I’ve changed anything in this series. They’re going in. I don’t know. I feel like the way our team plays, it just suits my style and I’ve been chipping in offensively. If I can keep doing that, hopefully we’ll keep winning.”
And it’s not even like he’s been living off the skill of a generous center or linemate, Aho or Seth Jarvis or Necas. He’s been out there grinding with Jesperi Kotkaniemi and Fast, not exactly a group blessed with explosive offensive ability, but finding the hard, honest work of playing the right way both productive and profitable.
His passes are finding his teammates’ tape. When he has a breakaway, or a penalty shot, he finishes with deadly efficiency. Everything’s going in.
As much as the Hurricanes needed to bounce back from a dismal Game 3 effort, and as much as they needed Frederik Andersen to stand tall, they knew they couldn’t win without all of that. But to put a chokehold on this series, to go home with a chance to win it and move onto the conference finals, they needed Martinook to continue to score like nobody honestly knew he could: Like very few Hurricanes before him have, and very few players in this postseason are.
The Hurricanes have scored 21 goals against the Devils. Martinook has figured in almost half of them, a good time to have the best week of his career.
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