Dustin Tokarski provides yet another example of why depth is so vital to an NHL organization.

He has done that before. Everywhere, it seems. That importance extends well beyond the NHL roster as well. Five-and-a-half years ago, Tokarski helped a group of Carolina Hurricanes prospects find their way to a Calder Cup championship. Now he could be positioned to help another wave of young Hurricanes talent find its way in the AHL.

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First go back to the 2018-19 season. Tokarski, 29 years old at the time, had come to the Charlotte Checkers late in the 2018-19 season in a deal with the Hartford Wolf Pack. The Checkers had rising prospect Alex Nedeljkovic in net that season on their way to a 51-17-7-1 regular-season finish. But the team needed a bit of extra insurance in net and to lighten Nedeljkovic’s workload, and Tokarski provided exactly that sort of help. Down the stretch he went 7-0-0 | 1.14 | .956 for the Checkers and then went 5-0-0 | 1.74 | .935 during the Calder Cup Playoffs. Adding Tokarski ended up being one of the best late-season AHL trades of the past decade.

But that Charlotte roster has long since scattered. For one, the Hurricanes-Checkers affiliation itself officially ended just 15 months after Charlotte had lifted the Calder Cup. Charlotte ended up in an affiliation with the Florida Panthers that has found success. The Hurricanes ended up affiliating with the Chicago Wolves – the team that fell to Charlotte in the 2019 Finals while partnered with the Vegas Golden Knights – and won the 2022 Calder Cup. Then the Hurricanes-Wolves arrangement came undone. The two sides spent last season apart before getting back together this season.

From that 2019 championship roster, Martin Necas has gone on to become a force with the Hurricanes, ranking third in NHL scoring. Nedeljkovic, Jake Bean, Morgan Geekie, Steven Lorentz, and Nicolas Roy all have become NHL regulars. Head coach Mike Vellucci is now an assistant coach with the Pittsburgh Penguins. Ryan Warsofsky, an assistant coach with the Checkers that season, went on to win another Calder Cup in 2022 and now guides the San Jose Sharks. Patrick Brown, Trevor Carrick, Roland McKeown, Andrew Poturalski, and Dan Renouf are among the base of that Charlotte team who still are contributing at the AHL level. Others found roles in high-level leagues across Europe. A handful of players have retired.

As for Tokarski, his path took him to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, Rochester, back to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, and once again another stop in Rochester. Along the way, he also ended up playing a combined 46 games between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Buffalo Sabres, including a career-high 29 at the NHL level in 2021-22.

But now Tokarski is 35 years old. After getting caught in a crowded goaltending picture last season in Rochester, no jobs materialized during the summer. It was a difficult job market for veteran goalies in general. Malcolm Subban went unsigned before eventually ending up with the Belleville Senators following a quick stop with the Grand Rapids Griffins. Tokarski had to settle for a training-camp invitation with the Ottawa Senators that ultimately did not pan out. Michael Hutchinson and Kasimir Kaskisuo, two proven goaltenders at this level are still unsigned after brief NHL training-camp stints back in September.

When the season opened, Tokarski did not have a job. And soon the Wolves would have all kinds of questions in net.

Spencer Martin had been sent to Chicago going into the season. Martin is a reliable 29-year-old who could handle the number-one job for the Wolves and new head coach Cam Abbott. Yaniv Perets, who had been with the ECHL’s Norfolk Admirals last season, meanwhile could compete with 2023 fifth-rounder Ruslan Khazheyev for additional work behind Martin. That plan made sense and followed an established arrangement that many NHL organizations utilize at the AHL level.

That plan quickly unraveled for the Carolina organization, however. An injury to Hurricanes netminder Frederik Andersen prompted Martin’s recall from the Wolves just two weeks into the season. Pyotr Kochetkov took control of the Carolina net with Martin in a back-up role.

Back with the Wolves, Martin’s departure caused its own issues.

All of this happened as Hurricanes prospects found themselves trying to handle the adjustment to the AHL and to each other. After having several prospects scattered across the hockey map last season, an important element of reuniting with the Wolves was having a chance to bring that young talent under the Carolina organization’s own day-to-day control again. Have them playing the same system, listening to the same coaches, and beginning to gel together.

And it’s a vital crop of players that the Hurricanes have placed with Chicago. Domenick Fensore, Noel Gunler, Aleksi Heimosalmi, Scott Morrow, Bradly Nadeau, Ronan Seeley, and Felix Unger-Sorum all help to make up a strong prospect group. Ryan Suzuki has had an up-and-down start to his pro career, but he is still only 23.

All of that youth is there to grow, which is a long-term investment for the Hurricanes but one that comes with day-to-day complications in the present. Quickly it became apparent that Chicago's goaltending needed a boost. Perets surrendered five goals apiece in his first two starts. Khazheyev only turned 20 this week and came to North America with all of one game of pro experience behind him. To continue to go solely with two goaltenders unproven in the AHL could risk the development of Carolina’s other prospects in Chicago. And it also risked the long-term well-being of two young netminders trying to establish themselves as pros.

Already Abbott has been able to get this team to play responsible hockey. They allow the fewest shots per game in the AHL (24.8). Scoring remains a significant issue, though, as they rank second-from-last at 1.83 goals per game. If the Wolves can get their scoring and special-teams play on track – the power play ranks last while the penalty kill is 28th – they could cause problems for opponents. 

That is where Tokarski, who has played 80 career NHL games, came into the picture. The Wolves brought the 35-year-old in on a professional tryout Nov. 2.

He has brought instant security in net for the Wolves. Along with that 2019 championship, he also took the Norfolk Admirals to the 2012 title. That Norfolk team won a league-record 28 consecutive games and tore through the Calder Cup Playoffs.

Outside of the AHL, he also has taken on some of the most pressure-packed goaltending assignments that the sport can offer. As a 20-year-old he helped take Canada to the gold medal at the 2009 IIHF World Junior Championship, and he did it on home ice in Ottawa, no less. A year earlier, he had carried the Spokane Chiefs to a Memorial Cup title. In 2014, he stepped in for Carey Price with the Montreal Canadiens in their Eastern Conference Final match-up with the New York Rangers. That role for Tokarski included two elimination games – one at Bell Centre, one at Madison Square Garden – before the Rangers took that series. When the Habs needed help in net that year, they relied on the sort of depth that Tokarski could bring.

This is a goaltender who can handle pressure. And a goaltender like that can settle down a young team, especially one struggling to find scoring. In his season debut last Sunday, he shut out the Rockford IceHogs with a 29-save afternoon.

Then came word on Thursday that Andersen’s health has much more long-term implications. Carolina announced that he will have knee surgery Friday and be out between 8-12 weeks. The long end of that timeline would put Andersen’s return in the second half of February. This is a team that has started 14-5-0-0. It’s reasonable to consider Carolina as a potential Stanley Cup contender. It’s even more reasonable to think that general manager Eric Tulsky might be busy

Right around when the Andersen news trickled out Thursday, Tokarski was doing his job again for the Wolves. Playing a morning road game at Manitoba, he shut down the Moose with 25 stops in a 5-0 win. He is 54-for-54 in stopping opponents so far, and suddenly a team that had mustered 18 goals in its first 11 games now has unloaded nine goals in two games. The power play is beginning to show some life as well with a 3-for-14 performance in these two wins.

Tokarski is now up to 11th all-time in wins by an AHL goaltender with 218. Should he stick with the Wolves for a long spell, it’s certainly conceivable that he could tie or pass AHL Hall of Fame member Frederic Cassivi’s 232 wins for seventh in league history. Tokarski’s two shutouts in two starts now have him up to 30 in his AHL career, putting him eighth in league history. Jason LaBarbera’s 32 shutouts would be next.

Even with those accomplishments, what might be next for Tokarski is still murky. His mask still bears Buffalo’s blue-and-gold theme as do his pads, after all. If the Hurricanes go out and acquire goaltending help, that would push Martin back to the Wolves and crowd the Chicago net. Maybe Perets might get a shot with Carolina. Tulsky even raised Tokarski’s name unprompted in an interview with the team website, saying that the veteran “could be an option for us.”

Hockey, especially in the AHL, can be such a day-to-day existence. What the Hurricanes do or don’t do will impact the Wolves directly. At 5-7-1-0, Abbott’s club still has a lot of work to do. But for now, at least, Tokarski has work, and the Wolves look a lot more dangerous.

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