Rookie will make his NHL debut in one of the biggest games of the season!

The Carolina Hurricanes are making a bold move for what could turn out to be the pivotal game in their first round series against the Washington Capitals in the 2019 Stanley Cup Playoffs. 

Earlier today the Carolina Hurricanes announced that they would be calling up 22 year old rookie center Aleksi Saarela to the main roster, not a particularly unusual move at this time of the season. Teams that are fighting in tough playoff series will often call up additional players to the main roster even when they have no intention of using them, either for depth purposes or sometimes even just to give their prospects a taste of the NHL's playoff atmosphere. That however does not appear to be the case for Saarela who up until this point has never played in a single NHL game, regular season or the playoffs. 

According to a breaking news report from the National Hockey League's own Tom Gulitti the Hurricanes have not only called up Saarela to the main roster but will in fact be injecting him into their line up tonight for Game 5 of the first round playoff match up between the aforementioned Hurricanes and the defending Stanley Cup Champions the Washington Capitals. I know this is largely just me stating the obvious, but can you imagine having to make your debut in such a high pressure situation? 

Saarela has spent the last 2 season of his professional career playing in the American Hockey League with the Charlotte Checkers, the AHL affiliate team of the Carolina Hurricanes, and is coming off a pretty solid season. During the 2017 - 2018 AHL regular season Saarela would record 25 goals and 18 assists for a very respectable 43 points over a 69 game stretch. He would finish that season with 8 penalty minutes and a plus minus rating of +4. In his most recent season however his numbers took a significant jump with him once again playing in 69 games but this time recording 30 goals and 24 assists for a total of 54 points.

This move will be particularly noteworthy for long time fans of the Hurricanes as Saarela is actually a piece that was acquired as part of the trade involving former Hurricanes captain Eric Staal.

[pub]