Carolina Hurricanes: The Wacky Case of Warren Foegele
By Conor Power
Carolina Hurricanes forward Warren Foegele scored 3 points in his first 2 NHL games, and had a hot start to his first full season in the NHL, but why is he so up and down?
Carolina Hurricanes forward Warren Foegele is a weird and wacky hockey player. The Markham, Ontario native spent his first full season in the NHL last year, and had, well, a varying degree of results. Foegele is a speedy player who’s struggled with his hands. However, Warren always seems to be somewhere when the money is on the table for the Hurricanes.
Foegele got off to a very quick start in his NHL career, having two goals in two NHL games in his first year as a professional. This was the year before he got his shot as a starter for the Carolina Hurricanes. He had developed a reputation as being a strong forechecking forward with a very fast pair of skates that doesn’t ever stop moving.
In his first full year with the big club, Foegele managed to keep his goal scoring rate up, as he improved to four goals in five NHL games, with a pair of goals in a 8-5 win over the New York Rangers, a game that marked the first ever storm surge.
However, this goal per game ratio that Warren had upheld through his first few games quickly turned into a large slump, as he struggled to produce. I don’t think anyone in the world thought Foegele would be a player like Sebastian Aho, or Teuvo Teravainen. However, a realistic expectation at this point in time for the young Canadian may have been a nice third line forward.
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Quickly, the hot shot left winger found himself on the fourth line accompanied by Greg McKegg and Brock McGinn. He found himself finishing the season with 77 games played, finding only 10 goals and 5 assists in his first full season as an NHL player, which makes what happened next that much more strange.
At Canes practice and Foegele was tabbed to try the mid-session penalty shot. What does it say that his skater-teammates were skating their lap well in advance of his shot being handled by Reimer? :)
— Adam Gold (@AGoldFan) October 28, 2019
Warren Foegele, had slowed right down. He had become almost an afterthought with the surge of players like Nino Neiderreiter, Aho and Teravainen breaking out, Andrei Svechnikov developing into a star, and Justin Williams defying father time. Down the stretch Warren Foegele had done a whole lot of nothing for a while in terms of production while the Canes clinched their first playoff berth in a decade.
Yet, come playoff time, Warren Foegele was the shining star. Overall he had 5 goals and 4 assists in 15 playoff games. He was almost the sole reason that the Hurricanes advanced past the Washington Capitals in the first round. Although he took a lot of flack for an incident that ended up injuring Washington’s T.J. Oshie, he still shined bright throughout the playoffs for Carolina.
Into his second season as a full time Hurricane, he as managed 1 goal and 4 assists (as well as an offside goal that was recalled) but the heroics that Warren put on display during the postseason last year for this hockey club will long live in the hearts of Caniacs in Carolina, and across the globe.
Question for Cardiac Cane Readers: Why do you think Foegele was so great in the playoffs yet so slow to start the regular season this year?
Next. Four Players that Stepped Up their Game this Season. dark