Will the Hurricanes’ new faces help answer the same old playoff questions?
No more excuses.
The Carolina Hurricanes have used them all. If this is going to work — the way they play, the way they’re built, the players they have — they’re running out of chances to put it all together.
Both goalies are healthy. The roster is healthy. Martin Necas isn’t around to blame anymore.
The questions remain the same.
Can the Hurricanes finish enough of the countless chances they create, under playoff conditions, to actually compete for the Stanley Cup? At even strength or on the power play?
Can their goalies steal a game or two, either to bail the Hurricanes out of the rare game in which they’re outplayed or end this 2-8 run in games decided by one goal?
Old questions. Old issues. Old excuses.
Despite making the playoffs in seven straight seasons — something that should, under no circumstances, be taken for granted — the Hurricanes haven’t won a series they weren’t supposed to win since 2019. It’s an old story, as old as seeing those New Jersey Devils on the other side of the bracket yet again.
They’ve been eliminated three times in series where they held home-ice advantage under Rod Brind’Amour, going 6-3 under those conditions. They’ve lost five straight overtime games. They’ve gone to the conference finals twice and gotten swept twice in their modern era (losing 12 straight if you go all the way back to 2009, which is ugly but not relevant).
And the failures have all been the same: Either a catastrophic breakdown in net or a stunning inability to score despite having no shortage of chances to do so. When it comes to the latter, there’s only so much credit you can give the opposition. As good as Sergei Bobrovsky looked against the Hurricanes in the conference finals 2023, the Vegas Golden Knights dinged him for 21 goals in 4½ games on their way to the Stanley Cup. (The Florida Panthers didn’t have Andrei Svechnikov, either.)
It comes back to the same essential question the Hurricanes face every spring: Does what works from October to March still work in April and May (and potentially June)? Does prioritizing quantity over quality work in the playoffs? And even if it does, do the Hurricanes have players good enough to finish the chances they create under these conditions?
Now for the good news: The goalies are healthy, and Frederik Andersen’s November knee surgery may make his durability less of an issue this year than it has in the past. Both Andersen and Pyotr Kochetkov are capable of stealing games, and have before. Andersen should be the guy, but the Hurricanes can rotate if needed, and the goaltending breakdowns that helped derail the Hurricanes in 2021 and 2022 shouldn’t be an issue this time around.
As always, it’s likely to be goals and not goaltending that’s the issue.
With Shayne Gostisbehere healthy late in the year — and throwing out the last few meaningless games — the Hurricanes were 7-for-27 on the power play. That’ll do … if it translates to the postseason. The Hurricanes were 2-for-18 against the Rangers last year. That obviously cannot happen again.
At even strength, the midseason additions of Taylor Hall, Logan Stankoven and Mark Jankowski could give the Hurricanes the kind of punch up and down the lineup they’ve lacked in past postseasons. The Hurricanes still need players like Svechnikov and Sebastian Aho and Seth Jarvis to score big goals, but a team without top-end elite talent has to make the most of its depth.
Hall in particular could be a secret weapon in the spring, the kind of veteran who knows how to find open spaces in the playoffs that a younger player cannot.
Those new faces might help answer some old questions. Those haven’t changed. The Hurricanes, despite their frequent visits to the postseason, still have everything to prove there.
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This story was originally published April 19, 2025 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Will the Hurricanes’ new faces help answer the same old playoff questions?."
