The 2016-17 Carolina Hurricanes have not gotten off to the start they wanted to. After a promising outlook going into the campaign following an offseason of change, the Canes stumbled out of the gate due to a combination of poor defensive play, blown leads and shoddy goaltending. Despite the team’s most recent game being a 5-1 shellacking of the Washington Capitals, the Canes currently sit at 4-6-4 with 12 points in the standings, dead last in the Eastern Conference.
However, if the Canes are going to make a run to get back into the hunt, now is the time to do it. The team’s upcoming schedule is favorable to racking up some points in the standings, and there are signs that the team could be close to finally breaking out of its season-opening funk.
The Canes’ upcoming schedule sets up well to make a run. Following the 5-1 win over Washington, the Canes will have their next three at home against the San Jose Sharks, Montreal Canadiens and Winnipeg Jets.
None of those games will be easy, as San Jose is the reigning Stanley Cup runner-up, Montreal has the best record in the league and the Canes saw in their first game of the season how tough an opponent Winnipeg could be. However, any NHL team should relish the opportunity to play three-straight games at home.
The home team in the NHL gets “last change,” the ability to send its players over the boards one second before any faceoff. Hurricanes head coach Bill Peters would do well to take advantage of this and pick and choose his matchups wisely in the upcoming home slate. In this manner, he will be able to use his best defensive players to try and shut down opposing team’s top offensive threats. He already used this to his advantage against Washington, as the Canes held the Caps’ big gun, Alex Ovechkin, off the scoreboard.
Following its home slate, the Canes will play three straight on the road against the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Canadiens and the Ottawa Senators, before returning home to take on the Florida Panthers. The games in Ottawa and Toronto should be winnable, and are the type of games the Canes will need to take advantage of to get back into the playoff picture.
Also setting things up well for the Canes is the fact that the team has at least one day off before every game except the one against Florida the next two weeks, as that one will be played directly after Ottawa.
After a hectic early schedule that saw quite a bit of travel, the Canes will finally get to play an extended stretch at home, and get some much-needed rest and practice before each game. Of course, a favorable stretch of schedule means nothing if the Canes can’t play better than they have been, but there have been some recent signs that the team will be able to do just that.
While a 5-1 victory over a team like the Washington Capitals is encouraging, it is just one game. However, some individual performances against them could mean much more if they can be carried over. So far this season, the Canes’ scoring attack has largely relied on the dynamic duo of forwards Jeff Skinner and Victor Rask, who rank first and second on the team in scoring, respectively.
Against Washington, though, another grouping emerged. Before the game at Saturday’s morning skate, Peters put together a line of forwards Jordan Staal, Teuvo Teravainen and Sebastian Aho. The trio looked like they’d been playing together for years in their first game together, combining for four goals and 11 points, including Aho’s first and second NHL goals. The three forwards showed some obvious chemistry and were able to feed off each other to create scoring chances.
In today’s NHL, it is essential that a team has more than one scoring line to rely on. If Skinner and Rask can continue their hot start, and the newly minted line of Staal, Teravainen and Aho can carry over its performance against Washington, it would give the Canes a huge boost.
There were other, more obvious issues than depth scoring early on for the Canes, and those show signs of resolution as well. The number of defensive breakdowns and turnovers that have plagued the Canes since the start of the season have, while not disappearing, greatly gone down over the past several games, and the team has shown flashes of the strong defensive game that worked so well in the second half of last year.
Perhaps the team’s biggest Achilles’ heel over the past couple years, goaltending, has also shown signs of a rebound lately. Netminder Cam Ward appears to have found a groove, as he has surrendered three goals or fewer in all of his last five starts, and one of the games where he did give up three involved a shootout. If Ward can continue his improved play, that would be the biggest factor in the Hurricanes improvement.
While the Carolina Hurricanes have not gotten off to a good start, there are signs that may be about to change. If the team can continue to improve on its issues from the start of the season, and take advantage of the upcoming schedule, a big hot streak could be in the cards for the Canes.
