Shhh. The Hurricanes are trying to sneak in. They are lying in the weeds, two points out of the East’s final playoff spot, as always trying not to call attention to themselves.
Their leading scorer, Teuvo Teravainen, is 53rd in the NHL. They did not bring in a single body at the trading deadline. The Hurricanes’ last major player-for-player swap was getting Jordan Staal for Brandon Sutter almost six years ago.
We combed Hartford for any sign of this vanished franchise and learned it is in Raleigh, playing in front of the lowest percentage of capacity–71 per cent–in the NHL.
The team’s longest winning streak this year has been four games, the longest losing streak five. After that fifth defeat, Coach Bill Peters publicly trashed the effort, which then spiked. But of course, the spurt died, like they all do sooner rather than later when there isn’t enough talent to sustain it. This is a fan’s worst nightmare: In Carolina, he can’t even find a star to blame.
“We Just have to keep playing the right way and the goals will come,… said one member of the Canes last week. He will have to go unnamed, not because what he said was off the record, but because we didn’t recognize him.
You may be excited to learn the Hurricanes have won the highest percentage of faceoffs of any team in the NHL. But probably not. The Canes have not made the playoffs in eight seasons, the longest such schneid in the league, and have been back to the playoffs just once since winning the Stanley Cup in 2006. Yes, that really did happen. So did a finals appearance in 2003. But any plans to do these things again remain top secret. This is the Howard Hughes of hockey franchises.
The new majority owner, Thomas Dundon, a finance guy from Dallas, does not yet know much about the sport. We await finding out whether this is good or bad. After declaring a need to improve the fan experience, and indicating satisfaction with GM Ron Francis and coach Bill Peters, Dundon has pretty much fallen silent, in the Hurricane way,
Meanwhile, Duke beat North Carolina in basketball Saturday night. Just threw that in there to keep all you people in North Carolina reading while your team, building brick-by-brick, shovels bricks at the net.
“We don’t score on a consistent basis,… says Peters. “Some nights it goes in for us, others it’s a grind to score. The longer you go without scoring you compromise your game and do things that don’t lead to success. You are down and you feel you have to chase the game and things start to go away from you.…
In Philadelphia, where the Hurricanes showed up winless in three, Justin Williams said thank you very much for a puck that hatched behind Petr Mrazek for a 1-0 lead and the Canes looked every bit a playoff team in dousing the red hot Flyers, 4-1. The following night at home against the Devils, Carolina never was behind, breaking a 1-1 tie on goals by Teravainen and Williams and winning 3-1.
Two nights later, with a chance to go back into playoff position, the Canes outplayed Winnipeg, losing on an eventual winning goal that caromed off the referee, enabling a half-empty net. A push to the end only got the Hurricanes to within a goal, the story of this season and last season and the season before that. With 16 games to go and no cavalry coming, it’s unlikely going to be about how many goals the Canes score but whether they make the most out of a few.
We’ll say this: Overrated, apparently, is the psychological boost clubs get from a deadline acquisition. With July 1 four months away, we still wonder what kind of statement Garth Snow made to John Tavares by standing pat with the fading Islanders. But the Rangers haven’t lost since their housecleaning and neither have the Panthers who, like Carolina, did nothing.
If you believe in your youth–and are operating $15.6 million under the cap before 71 per cent capacity–you stay the course; the question in Carolina being how much faith Francis should still maintain in his young players or how much Dundon should have in an inherited GM, four years on the job. Like a lot of people, we had the Hurricanes finally as a playoff team this year and that still may prove true, even if Florida has caught up to the pack with three games in hand and it is still hard to see Columbus, New Jersey or Philadelphia plummeting and opening up another spot.
One of these days, or decades, Victor Rask, currently on the fourth line, will bust out. But to suggest Carolina has enough to slither in is not to maintain it has the foundation pieces of an eventual deep playoff team,
Jordan Staal’s value was apparent once more when he rejoined the lineup in Philadelphia from a family tragedy-a stillborn child. “His ice time, his numbers, his playing in all situations, they are huge for us.… said Peters.
“You need your best players to be your best players. You miss them when they are not here.…
If you need Staal, whose high for 12 seasons is 50 points, to be your best player, you are not a contender. Teravainen played the weekend with purpose, Sebastian Aho can perform on a first line, and we would take Brock McGinn on our team. But the Canes have a lot of guys, high picks Jeff Skinner and Elias Lindholm included, who are good only on the perimeters.
The team has drafted a lot of defensemen in prime spots, none of them a bust. But alleged All Star Justin Faulk, though better lately, hasn’t had a great season. And, in year two, Noah Hanifan, the first defenseman taken in the 2015 draft, isn’t making the impact of Ivan Provorov and Zach Werenski, who went two and three picks later.
This building team has become reliant upon 34-year-old Cam Ward to get to the playoffs, not what was envisioned when Francis gave up a No 2 pick to Chicago for Scott Darling and then signed him for four years and $16.6 million. Darling has been awful. Whether this was cash down the rat hole or another in a long history of NHL players with new big money and new responsibilities freaking out in Year One at a new location, Darling will let us know by his play in Year Two.
Marcus Kruger, who was supposed to add some grit in a deal with Vegas, is in the minors, leaving Justin Williams at this point as the only justification for the Canes’ summer splash. Well at least it was a shopping spree by their standards. At age 36 Williams has slowed a tad but nevertheless is on approximate pace to tally the fiftyish points he did both years in Washington.
The next playoff in which Williams doesn’t produce will be the first. So try to keep the noise down, please, as the Hurricanes concentrate on getting in.