With training camp under way, an important season for the Carolina Hurricanes approaches. This season will be the first under new head coach Rod Brind’Amour and general manager Don Waddell, and will bring the debut of forward Andrei Svechnikov, the second overall pick in the 2018 draft.
Coming off a league-leading ninth season out of the playoffs, the Canes also experienced a great deal of roster turnover. Here’s the five most important questions the team will need to answer for a successful season.
1. Where will the goals come from? A group that finished 23rd in the NHL last season with 2.74 goals per game last year will need to put the puck in the net at a higher clip to pick up more wins this year. And they’ll have to do it without forward Jeff Skinner, who finished second on last year’s team with 24 goals and was always a consistent 25-30 goal threat. Skinner was traded to the Buffalo Sabres in August.
The team will hope for continued growth from Finnish forwards Sebastian Aho and Teuvo Teravainen, last year’s top two scorers. Defenseman Dougie Hamilton, acquired from Calgary, tied for the league lead for goals by defenders last year and should add more offense from the blueline.
The Canes will also be hoping for production from a pair of rookies in Andrei Svechnikov and 2017 No. 12 pick Martin Necas (more on that in a bit). Finding a consistent source of offense will be one of the biggest keys for this year’s team.
2. Are Svechnikov and Necas ready for prime time? As mentioned above, the Canes will be asking for a lot from these two rookies this year. The pair is certainly brimming with talent and potential, with Svechnikov coming off a season with 40 goals in 44 games in the OHL, and Necas putting up nine goals and 17 points in 24 games playing against men in the Czech league.
The big question is how ready the duo is for NHL action. If they’re able to step in as top-six or top-nine forwards and produce in the 20-goal, 40-point range or higher, it would be a big boost for Carolina this season.
3. Adjustment period? The Canes will look very different both on the ice and behind the bench when they take the ice against the New York Islanders to open the regular season Oct. 4 as Brind’Amour replaces four-year head coach Bill Peters and a slew of new players take the ice.
Gone are forwards Skinner, Elias Lindholm, Derek Ryan, Joakim Nordstrom and Lee Stempniak, defenseman Noah Hanifin and goalie Cam Ward. In are Svechnikov, Necas, Hamilton, forwards Micheal Ferland and Jordan Martinook, defenseman Calvin de Haan and goalie Petr Mrazek. That’s a lot of new faces in new places, and Brind’Amour will have to find fits and chemistry on lines and pairings for all of them.
That will need to happen in training camp; slow starts have sunk the Canes in the past, and the team can’t afford to lag behind early with an extended adjustment period.
4. Is the goaltending good enough? This is going to be a question for the Hurricanes until it isn’t. Last season, the team brought in Scott Darling after a strong run as the Chicago Blackhawks’ goaltender. That did not work out as planned, as Darling was one of the worst goalies in the NHL with a .888 save percentage and 3.18 goals-against average. He and Ward combined for a league-worst .893 team save percentage and gave up an average of 3.09 goals per game (10th worst).
Ward moved on to the Chicago Blackhawks in free agency, and the Canes signed Petr Mrazek, who is also hoping for a rebound coming off a rough season. Darling has spent all offseason getting himself in better shape and is optimistic about his ability to bounce back.
League average goaltending would have gotten the Canes into the playoffs in each of the past three seasons, and the team will need that from one of Darling or Mrazek, ideally both, to have a chance to get there this year.
5. Is this the year? The Canes currently hold the league’s longest active playoff drought and will take another crack at snapping it this season. There’s a lot that has to go right for this team, but it also has some things going in its favor. Hamilton, de Haan, Jaccob Slavin, Brett Pesce, Justin Faulk and Trevor van Riemsdyk give the team one of the best defense corps in the NHL.
Brind’Amour, who captained the Canes to the Stanley Cup as a player in 2006, and newly-named team captain Justin Williams should be able to instill a positive coaching change. If the Canes can get enough added offense from Svechnikov, Necas, Hamilton, Aho, Teravainen and Ferland, and either Darling or Mrazek can have a rebound year, a return to the postseason could be in the cards.
