Ah, yes. The season is in full swing and nothing feels better than to have hockey on every night. There has been a flurry of surprises in the first couple of weeks, with more surely to come.
The Carolina Hurricanes are off to their best start as a team since 2009, ironically the last time they tasted postseason hockey. While this is great news, it has been an interesting nine games. The Canes are 4-4-1, putting them in at seventh place in the Metropolitan Division. The Metropolitan is a fickle mistress that isn’t forgiving to teams that start slow. The Hurricanes probably never expected to win the division this season, but a playoff appearance is a must.
Seven points back from first place, the Hurricanes have backed up Bill Peters’ strategy so far, with newbie goaltender Scott Darling looking like a sensible start in net. He posted big wins against the Toronto Maple Leafs and Calgary Flames while losing a couple of heartbreakers along the way. He has recorded a 3-3-1 record with a .889 save percentage. In usual Hurricanes fashion, the Canes don’t win a game unless they allow several goals.
Even Cam Ward has looked stellar in his new role as a backup, getting a big win over the Edmonton Oilers and barely losing to the St. Lois Blues. In the loss to St. Lous, he recorded 32 saves in heroic fashion.
One night, they hang on with one of the best teams in hockey and lose by a goal and the next night they lose by four. The Jekyll and Hyde act is not something Canicacs are used to seeing, as most seasons they have just been consistently bad. However, this year some major strides were expected, and Carolina has delivered. Sort of.
A key to the playoffs is consistently getting points, especially in a division stacked with so many good teams. The biggest reason for Carolina’s four losses thus far is offense. Jeff Skinner is the only forward who has been able to find the back of the net night in and night out. Usually, it would be ok to have your star player scoring all the goals, but no one else on the team can find any sort of momentum.
When all the pressure is put on one guy, it creates this lack of scoring creativity. The only other Hurricanes with more than two goals are Jordan Staal and Teuvo Terivainen. Skinner has six goals and is on track for a magnificent season, but if the team wants more wins, players like Sebastian Aho and Elias Lindholm need to get into the scoring column.
With nothing but tough divisional matchups ahead, the Hurricanes need to focus up and get everyone on board before they fall too far behind.
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