RALEIGH, N.C. — This column will not be fair. Not precisely. Not when a bounce here, a whistle there, a fluke somewhere, anywhere, could have changed the entire complexion and narrative of this series, of this team, of the very perception of this organization. Not when this team has looked so strong at five-on-five, not when the short-lived nature of special teams is the root cause of its current woes, not when every game it plays (and every damn game it loses) seems decided. for a goal, a shot, a deflection. Not when this team has enjoyed the longest sustained streak of success in franchise history.
But we have to talk about the Carolina hurricanes.
Not in the same sentence as the Toronto Maple Leafs; That's too harsh, too melodramatic. But in the same paragraph.
Because it's not working. It hasn't worked. And it looks like it won't work.
You know what hurricanes are all about. Depth on elite finalists. Quantity of shots over quality. Ruthlessness over ingenuity. Being a goalkeeper is always good enough, never good enough. It works so beautifully, so majestically, from October to April. But in May it hasn't worked and they haven't even made it to June.
Carolina is an organizational marvel, one of the best functioning and forward-thinking boards in the league. The Hurricanes have created a monster, a team that is so deep, so fast, so effective and so fierce up front. They win battles. They recover puppies. They wear down opponents. They won the NHL's rough-and-tumble Metropolitan Division three years in a row before only being edged out by the Presidents' Trophy-winning New York Rangers this season by 3 points. They have finished among the top three teams in the league in each of the last four seasons. Analytical models love them, bettors favor them, and hockey players and computer scientists alike respect them.
Then the playoffs come and, well, this happens.
The Hurricanes are on the brink again, trailing 3-0 in their second-round series against the Rangers after Artemi Panarin's acrobatic bunt at 1:43 of overtime Thursday night gave New York a 3-win victory. -2. It was a heartbreaking way to lose for Carolina, especially after Andrei Svechnikov scored the equalizer with 1:36 left in regulation, sending the cacophonous PNC Arena into utter chaos. It seemed like that could be a turning point in the series. Instead, it became another twist.
PLAY A GAME, ANDREI! pic.twitter.com/6jfaD9Af6H
— Carolina Hurricanes (@Canes) May 10, 2024
It was just as cruel in Game 2 on Tuesday night, when the Hurricanes lost in double overtime at Madison Square Garden. And when they lost 4-3 in Game 1. And when they lost all four games of last season's Eastern Conference finals against the Florida Panthers, each by one goal, two of them in overtime, one of them in quadruple overtime, the sixth…longest game in NHL history. Their last eight postseason losses have come by one goal, five in overtime.
Always chasing one more goal. Always trying to overcome the obstacle. Never stop getting there.
“He's a little bit of a broken record,” Canes captain Jordan Staal said quietly Thursday night. He was talking about another game in which the special teams (a season-long strength) betrayed Carolina. The league's second-best power play went 0-for-5 for the third straight game. The Hurricanes even allowed a shorthanded goal to Chris Kreider and two more shorthanded chances on top of that.
But Staal could also have been talking about the bigger picture. Because we've seen this May frustration too many times.
If you count the Play-In round of the 2020 bubble playoffs, Carolina has won a postseason round in six consecutive seasons. It's the kind of sustained streak of competitiveness that most of the league would do anything to achieve. But Carolina hasn't won a single game beyond the second round in those six seasons, reaching the Eastern Conference finals in 2019 and 2023. The Hurricanes method works extremely well in the regular season. He makes wild-card-level playoff teams work quickly, like the New York Islanders the past two seasons.
But against other elite teams (those with players from around the world like Panarin, Matthew Tkachuk and Aleksander Barkov, or Nikita Kucherov and Brayden Point, and goalkeepers from around the world like Igor Shesterkin, Sergei Bobrovsky or Andrei Vasilevskiy) they excel. only shorts. agonizingly bermuda So brief that she always feels like a cartwheel, that it feels unfair to hold them against those losses, that she feels like the hockey gods are just toying with them in their own cruel way.
But it's still short. Always brief.
And his Hurricanes coach, Rod Brind'Amour, can say ad nauseam that he loved Carolina's five-on-five game against the Rangers. He should. The Hurricanes were the tied best team in all three games. And we can point to Pyotr Kochetkov's brilliant pokecheck on a Kreider breakaway in the final minute of regulation or any number of Frederik Andersen saves in the first two games. And we should do it. Both goalkeepers were solid. And we can point out that Carolina acquired the finisher it has always lacked in Jake Guentzel and who has scored three goals in the last two games. And we should do it. It has been just as advertised.
But over time, stumbles become a trend, stumbles become a signature. And while the extreme of each situation varies wildly, the Hurricanes find themselves in a similar situation to the Maple Leafs, who have turned “run it back” into a punch line, hitting a brick wall spring after spring after spring. The Canes are better than the Leafs. The Canes have accomplished more than the Leafs. The Canes are built as the polar opposite of the Leafs, loaded with stars and top-heavy. But the Canes have won the Stanley Cup as many times as the Leafs. That's what it's about, right? Both have been built to win championships. Neither of them have gotten that close.
Toronto fired coach Sheldon Keefe on Thursday. Obviously Carolina won't do the same with Brind'Amour, one of the best coaches in the league. He is owed a new contract, but it is incomprehensible that the franchise icon would be behind the bench anywhere else. He will be back. Carolina goal can rethink things. The core duo of Sebastian Aho and Svechnikov are locked in long-term, but the roster is littered with pending free agents. General manager Don Waddell will have the kind of salary flexibility that most contenders can only dream of. Waddell may look for more high-level talent up front and perhaps in goal. Brind'Amour can modify his system, perhaps loosening the structure and restrictions of Carolina's shoot-and-chase style, funneling pucks to the net from anywhere and everywhere and encouraging more creativity and more offensive boldness. . Something. Anything. Because the Rangers attack the network. The Hurricanes just shot him.
Barring a historic comeback from a 3-0 deficit that makes this column and narrative more debatable than the silly notion that hockey can't thrive in a southern market, Waddell and Brind'Amour have to decide if they too They want to apply. back. Or if it's time for something different.
“Tomorrow will be a new day,” Staal said. “Tonight it's going to hurt, I won't sleep much. But tomorrow we will have a new day and we will find a way to win a game. “It’s been our model here for a long, long time.”
And it has worked for a long, long time. Just not good enough. Just not when it matters most.
(Photo by Martín Necas: Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
