For the second time in the last five seasons, the Carolina Hurricanes have made it to the Conference Finals but fell short of advancing to the Stanley Cup Final. This season was a bit of a step forward as the Hurricanes were second round exits in each of the three seasons that preceded this year, but given where the Hurricanes are as a franchise, it’s hard to call anything short of winning the Cup a success. Carolina has been something of a power house since Rod Brind ‘Amour took over as Head Coach in 2018. Before his tenure began, the Hurricanes hadn’t made the playoffs since they lost to the Penguins in the Conference Final in 2009. That being said, it’s fair to classify this as the Hurricanes window and the big question that comes with another earlier than hoped exit becomes, is their window closing?
First let's take a look at the Hurricanes playoff run this year. They opened the playoffs off with a series against the Islanders and came up with a big overtime win in Game 6 to send them packing. They went on to win another series against the Devils who were riding hot from taking down the Rangers, with a “gentleman’s sweep” four games to one. There weren’t many times throughout those first two rounds where the Hurricanes didn’t appear to be in full control. The Islanders played their style of hockey well enough to take two games from Carolina and had they forced a Game 7, maybe things would have been real different. However, those two games were the only times Carolina weren’t in the driver's seat as they took care of New Jersey with ease and advanced to the Conference Finals to take on the Florida Panthers.
Anyone who has watched the playoffs this year knows what a story the Panthers have become but even with that into consideration, not many people expected the Hurricanes to get swept out of the third round. The series kicked off with one of the craziest games of the post season thus far in a game that went to four overtimes, becoming one of the longest hockey games in league history. Sure enough, Matthew Tkachuk of the Panthers was the hero in the final seconds of that fourth overtime and it would be back to the locker room for a quick turn around to Game 2. Wouldn’t you believe, another overtime and another moment for Matthew Tkachuk to be the hero at Carolina’s expense. This time, only two minutes into extra innings. So to the Hurricanes credit, while they did get swept, all four games were one goal games with the first two coming in overtime. However, how much of that is really excusable when you have to put yourselves in those positions to begin with?
The deeper we get in these playoffs, the harder it gets to pin these eliminations on team’s as their opponents go on to play for the Stanley Cup. Florida is having an incredible run led by the heroics of Matthew Tkachuk, goal-tending from Sergei Bobrovsky and all around team play from this ragtag group Paul Maurice ices night in and night out. While the expectations for Carolina were much higher and if we really wanted to, we could breakdown and pin point little areas where they should’ve been better. Although at the end of the day, these are hockey games and sometimes the other team just beats you. Call it luck, call it hard work, call it whatever you want, it’s just the way it is at times. That being said, these results are going to put a bunch of questions on the Hurricanes as a whole which brings us to how they’re going to move forward.
Frankly, I don’t see this loss leading to a situation where Don Waddell blows everything up and starts the whole thing over. He does however, have a lot of decisions to make as the team has a ton of pending unrestricted free agents and a couple RFA’s in need of a new contract. It’s fair to assume the Hurricanes didn’t get the trade deadline acquisitions they hoped for. It was believed that they were in on Timo Meier as they wanted to really make a push to go all the way this season. Instead, their trade deadline pickups came in the form of Shayne Gostisbehere and Jesse Puljujarvi, the latter being a restricted free agent. Puljujarvi will likely be back with the team once a new contract is worked out but you can expect Gostisbehere to hit the open market come July 1.
Along with Ghost, Carolina has a lot of big name players without a contract, including their captain, starting goalie, and several other key names and veterans. The goal-tending situation in Carolina will be a fascinating story line this summer as both Freddie Anderson and Antti Raanta are pending UFA’s. The Hurricanes still have Pytor Kochetkov who turned some heads last postseason but hasn’t really proven to be a capable number one just yet. Will Don Waddell look to bring back Freddie or will he look to add a goalie in free agency that can act as a 1A to Pochetkov’s 1B? The average age of Carolina’s pending UFA’s is around 34 which leads to the idea that most, if not all of them could be left walking to free agency.
Among those names are three players who finished the season on LTIR in Ondrej Kase, Jake Gardiner and Max Pacioretty. All three are not only well into their thirties, but have significant questions and concerns to their injury history which leads to the assumption that they will becomes free agents as long as they are able to continue playing. Then you have a couple other seasoned vets in the back nine of their careers in Paul Stastny, Derek Stepan, and Hurricanes Captain Jordan Staal. Of the three, you’d expect Staal to be the most likely to return but frankly, depending on how the market plays out, as long as they’re willing to come back on a close to league min deal, I wouldn’t say the door is closed completely. Lastly you have Jesper Fast and Calvin de Haan. Both of which shouldn’t have a difficult time finding a new home and a decent paycheck… Perhaps we’ll even see a reunion of sorts? (Yes, I’m manifesting Jesper Fast back to New York)
Nevertheless, this leaves some holes, primarily in the team’s bottom six. If they keep Jordan Staal around, I wouldn’t expect this team to take any step back next season but it all depends on who they can get in net for them next season. There are not going to be a ton of flashy options in free agency this summer, therefore if they’re looking to pick up someone elite, they may need to look at trades. Connor Hellebuyck? If they don’t want to acquire anyone via trade, some names that could be of interest include Tristan Jarry, Joonas Korpisalo, Martin Jones and James Reimer. Reimer has had success in the past, including with Carolina and could bode well as a mentor partner for Kochetkov. The same could be said for most of those names as they each have their own resumes full of experience but regardless, this is for sure the most pressing issue with the Hurricanes.
The Hurricanes also have some prospects that with a good training camp, could be options for them going into next season as well. Not to mention, they run a relatively strong system through the AHL, meaning they could always surprise us with a name we may not be familiar with that becomes an NHL regular. Waddell is projected to have around $24 Million dollars in cap space to play around with this summer, making spending not an issue but spending wisely will absolutely be the key factor. While the team may have underachieved in terms of their expectations, I always talk about how team’s never win when they’re supposed to. This third round exit could be that last push to get them to the next step and given their position, I like their chances of running it back. Therefore with all things considered, I don’t see their window closing nor do I see any massive changes in terms of trades or anyone getting fired. It’s fair to say next season will be viewed through a more serious microscope but if you’re Carolina, you’re not worried about much as long as you’re on pace to get back to the playoffs.
Chris Feldman
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