Carolina Hurricanes, a work in progress, show forward movement with still a long way to go
If it wasn’t clear on opening night, it is now. The past few years, it felt like the Carolina Hurricanes came storming into the season, picking up where they left off in the spring. That’s over for now.
Tuesday’s win was a big step forward from Friday’s opening loss, showing the effort that was too often absent from the opener, but there’s still work to be done. This group is going to need some time.
Two games in, only one line has shown any consistent cohesion. The defense is a work in progress, collectively, with new players and new roles. The goaltenders, at least, appear to be in midseason form.
There will be ups and downs. The progression will not be linear.
Which is all to be expected. The core of this team remained largely unchanged for so long that one season often seemed to blend into the next. The six long-term players who left this summer had played a combined 29 seasons here, and that doesn’t include the injured Jesper Fast, who’s just as sorely missed.
Stefan Noesen was wearing the other red, white and black jerseys in Tuesday night’s 4-2 win over the New Jersey Devils — but not the injured Brett Pesce — as were Dougie Hamilton and Erik Haula, a reminder that this kind of turnover is inevitable in professional sports. The Hurricanes just haven’t experienced it in a while.
The Hurricanes did their best to replace the departed, and Shayne Gostisbehere knows his way around, at least, but it’s impossible to accelerate into a span of weeks the development of chemistry and cohesion that took years to generate organically. It’s a process. A long process.
This is a natural progression for most teams in any NHL season. The Hurricanes, because of their continuity — same coaches, same system, most of the same players, year after year — took it for granted. This year, they’re like just about everyone else. It will take some work, and some time.
And there is time. As long as the Hurricanes are up to speed by Thanksgiving, which has become the cutoff date for playoff contenders, they’ll be fine. Everyone gets that much runway. They may not need it.
Naturally, the annual State Fair vacation looms — six games over 11 days stretching from Pittsburgh to Vancouver — which means the Hurricanes are going to get a crash course in both road-trip bonding and early season adversity. The days when that trip could sink the season before it really even started are long gone, but it still comes at a curious time for a team trying to find its footing.
It could even turn into a positive, if the Hurricanes return to Raleigh a more cohesive group after some quality time away from home. They already caught one unexpected break when it comes to the schedule.
The circumstances that led to the cancellation of Saturday’s would-be second game at the Tampa Bay Lightning were awful but the timing wasn’t bad for the Hurricanes. They needed a little more time, and it showed Tuesday when everyone seemed to be singing from the same music even if there’s still room for improvement.
They get another three days off before the road trip begins in Pittsburgh. Time is their friend, because the schedule is not. The trip only gets tougher the farther west they go.
They passed one test Tuesday. There are more tests ahead.
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This story was originally published October 16, 2024 at 10:42 AM with the headline "Carolina Hurricanes, a work in progress, show forward movement with still a long way to go."
