Why fans of the second-best team in the NHL are panicking, and why they shouldn’t be
This was the second-best regular season in the history of the Carolina Hurricanes, a third straight division title, a fifth straight playoff appearance. You’d think that would evince a certain degree of confidence, even swagger, heading into the playoffs.
You’d think.
Instead, the way the Hurricanes finished the season has generated what amounts to a five-alarm panic. This may be the first 113-point team whose own fans are collectively picking it to lose in the first round.
Everywhere you look, Hurricanes fans are coming up with reasons why the Hurricanes can’t win instead of reasons why they can. And it’s not because everyone became a useless pessimist overnight; the way the Hurricanes have played for the past month, along with the star players they’re missing, is enough to make the most dedicated glass-half-full partisan ask soul-searching questions about their 6-5-1 finish.
Throw in the lingering PTSD from last year’s premature playoff exit against the New York Rangers — and the lack of clutch offense that doomed the Hurricanes then and resurfaced at inopportune times throughout this season — and it’s not at all unreasonable to fear the worst as the Hurricanes open the first round of the NHL playoffs against the New York Islanders at PNC Arena on Monday.
It’s also misguided.
We’re losing the forest for the trees here. This is still the second-best team in the NHL, with a better regular-season record than the 2006 team that went on to win the Stanley Cup, and the atmosphere around the Hurricanes is a product of their own standards as much as anything.
“It’s the same expectations, same standard for us,” Hurricanes center Sebastian Aho said. “Because we’ve been reaching for that goal for five years now, but probably the media, fans, everyone says these guys have been there five years straight, we have the same core, we’ve got way more experience than five years ago, maybe it’s more the outside thing that the expectations have gotten higher.”
The past five years have been a constant progression forward, and some of it was unquestionably low-hanging fruit, with vast areas for growth. But as a team continues to get better, as it joins the NHL’s consistent regular-season elite, there’s less room for that kind of continual improvement, and more potential for things to stall or stagnate. It’s hard to make giant leaps forward when you’ve already come this far.
So it’s less that the Hurricanes have regressed, and more that the pace of their progress has slowed. The rate of change has changed, and things that used to be cause for celebration are now taken for granted. Which is fine. A little healthy apprehension can be a good thing heading into the postseason, especially for a team that has gone from having nothing to lose to everything to lose.
As for the past month, certainly there are legitimate concerns over the power play and goaltending, and the absence of Max Pacioretty and Andrei Svechnikov — two key offensive players who suffered season-ending injuries — but it’s equally certain that the Hurricanes reached a bit of a motivational dead zone once that playoff spot was secured. That’s not a criticism, or a weakness. It’s merely human, and something the Hurricanes are willing to confront openly.
“When I think about the last month of the season, it was kind of harder to motivate for the games because we’re in the playoffs, and kind of playing for nothing,” Hurricanes forward Martin Necas said. “We were already thinking, ‘Ten games left in the season, get me to the playoffs.’ When you’re that excited about something, it’s really great. …
“You put up results, fans want more and more, and obviously the last few seasons we’ve been pretty good in the regular season, but not really in the playoffs. We’re trying to prepare for that. Now it’s go time. Everybody starts from the same line and we’re excited about it.”
It’s better to hear that acknowledged than pretend it didn’t happen. The years when the Hurricanes came roaring into the playoffs because they needed every single, last point just to get in are over. Regrouping and gathering new momentum is part of the annual challenge for any elite team, and managing that process is part of the Hurricanes’ progression as a group.
The kids who got their first taste of the playoffs in 2019 — Aho, Jordan Martinook, Brett Pesce, Jaccob Slavin, Svechnikov — are full-grown playoff veterans. They’ve measured themselves against better teams and they’ve dealt with expectations as the favorite. (Although, admittedly, not all that well last spring.)
They’ve seen the conference finals. They’ve tasted bitter disappointment.
“Every team that makes the playoffs, they’re expected to win and they want to win and they think they can,” Hurricanes captain Jordan Staal said. “We’re no different. We were no different when we snuck in, and we’re no different where we’re at now.”
There was only so much they were ever going to get out of this regular season, a reality they both faced and embraced in October. And now this is the reality they face and have embraced in April: Their season starts now, and whatever came before is almost irrelevant.
If fans are concerned that the Hurricanes have lost their mojo, the Hurricanes are not.
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This story was originally published April 17, 2023 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Why fans of the second-best team in the NHL are panicking, and why they shouldn’t be."
