The 2021-22 Carolina Hurricanes spent the vast majority of the season living up to their billing as Stanley Cup contenders before running out of steam in a heartbreaking second round exit against the New York Rangers. With the sting of a gut-wrenching finish to an overall historic season starting to subside, let’s look back on how the Hurricanes performed this season.
The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat
Expectations for the Canes were higher than ever in head coach Rod Brind’Amour’s fourth season at the helm. The prior three playoff runs were a bit surprising, although a welcome surprise for Hurricanes fans, but this year’s squad was not satisfied with simply participating in the postseason.
The 2022 Canes weren’t just playoff participants, they were contenders. In a season that saw Caroilna set a new franchise record for points in a season and break the attendance record for hockey in PNC Arena multiple times over, the second-round exit stung more than in seasons past.
Of course, Brind’Amour himself contributed a lot to that shift in mentality. The Canes skipper ended a decade-long playoff drought in his first season with the Hurricanes, combining with the broader winning culture he brought with him to boost expectations for the franchise. While Brind’Amour ushers in a new era of Canes hockey, the play on the ice is taking longer to catch up.
Everything was working until it wasn’t
It’s hard to pinpoint what exactly led to the drop in on-ice quality that the Canes experienced this postseason, but the fact of the matter is that the team just didn’t measure up. Carolina’s league-best penalty kill in the regular season showed sudden, significant cracks in the armor. The Hurricanes could not for the life of them win a game on the road. Late-season injuries to goaltenders Frederik Andersen and Antti Raanta amplified the sound of the wheels falling off the proverbial wagon.
While those injuries in net can’t really be classified as failures on Carolina’s part, they did amplify those defensive struggles. The Hurricanes blue line no longer had the failsafe of Andersen’s elite goaltending to mask its shortcomings, so when Andersen suffered what was later revealed to be a torn MCL on April 16 against the Avalanche, Raanta was thrust into the role of primary netminder with rookie Pyotr Kochetkov alleviating the strain on Raanta from time to time.
Come playoff time, Raanta earned his stripes in the Canes net, but only for so long. The Finn had served as goalie 1B to Andersen’s 1A all season, so Raanta eventually started to buckle under the sudden strain of playing day in and day out. This fatigue manifested as a MCL sprain in that winner-take-all game seven against the Rangers, forcing Brind’Amour to send out Kochetkov in emergency relief.
While Kochetkov performed admirably in a handful of appearances in the regular season, the rookie simply wasn’t ready for the speed and pressure of the Stanley Cup playoffs, ending up with a 3.89 goals against average (GAA) for the postseason.
Again, netminding wasn’t Carolina’s only weak spot. While the friendly confines of PNC Arena were a safe haven, the Hurricanes looked lost under the oppressive atmosphere of opposing fans. The Canes lost every single road game of their playoff run, getting outscored 26-10 in six contests all by at least two goals. While the hometown fueled them to a 7-1 playoff record at home with a 13-plus goal differential, that one loss was the do-or-die game 7 against the Rangers that put the Canes’ season to bed with a 5-2 loss.
While the Hurricanes’ underwhelming playoff was not reflective of how they played in the regular season, it’s a sucker punch ending for a squad that looked primed to secure another Stanley Cup.
Highs and lows for young stars
The Canes’ roster boasts a myriad of young stars that shined in 2021-22 but also its fair share of down years. Center Sebastian Aho took the reins as the team’s points leader for the fifth straight season while 22-year-old right wing Andrei Svechnikov posted career-highs in goals and assists with 30 and 39, respectively.
Centers Jesperi Kotkaniemi and Seth Jarvis also contributed nicely in their first seasons in Canes sweaters, notching 69 combined points. Jarvis, the spritely rookie taken by Carolina with the 13th pick of the 2020 draft, accounted for 40 of those points in his breakout season. Kotkaniemi tacked on the other 29 in a rebound campaign of his own, putting up his best totals in goals and assists since his rookie year with Montreal in 2018-19.
On the other hand, center Martin Nečas regressed a bit in his fifth year as a Hurricane. Although Nečas matched his goal total from a season ago, he took 25 more games to do so. For a player that seems just on the verge of taking his game to the next level, this season was a bit of a letdown for the 23-year-old fan favorite. With Nečas entering the offseason as a restricted free agent, one has to wonder how much longer the Carolina front office will wait for him to break out.
Roster shakeup paid dividends
The front office was not afraid to shuffle players around prior to the 2021-22 season, a gamble that paid off for the Hurricanes, relatively speaking. Despite the postseason disappointment, bringing in an entirely new set of goalies, replacing over half of their defenseman and signing some new forwards as well could have gone really bad, really fast for the Canes.
Fortunately for Hurricanes fans, this bevy of fresh faces did not disappoint. Andersen’s debut season in Carolina had him well in the running for the Vezina Trophy, awarded to the league’s top goalie, prior to his injury while still finishing a respectable fourth in the final voting. The 32-year-old Dane came in from Toronto in free agency and emerged as the main man for the Canes with a 2.17 GAA for the season. Raanta stepped in the net as well, earning himself and Andersen the Jennings Trophy for the fewest goals allowed in the regular season.
On the blue line, hotheaded defenseman Tony DeAngelo injected plenty of grit and attitude to the Canes defense along with 51 points across 64 games. Fellow defenseman Ian Cole poured on more of that grit and a bounceback season of his own, showing stout defense and riding 17 assists to his first season with double-digit points since 2018-19 with Colorado.
Defensemen Brendan Smith and Ethan Bear did not put up the same numbers as DeAngelo and Cole, but did show promise in their own right. While not an offensive threat (most of the time) Smith showcased a ton of physicality with 73 hits over 45 games. On the flip side, Bear showed flashes of point-scoring potential with five goals and nine assists but had a tendency to turn the puck over in his own zone along with a general lack of urgency to his game.
Along with Kotkaniemi, center Derek Stepan was one of the main additions to the forward lines. The 32-year-old veteran amassed 19 points while bouncing in and out of the lineup to give rest to other players, providing additional depth to an already stacked offense.
Should I stay or should I go?
This is the question on the minds of many Canes players heading into the offseason. With key contributors such as left wing Nino Niederreiter, center Vincent Trocheck and Cole along with center and 2021-22 trade deadline acquisition Max Domi set to become unrestricted free agents on July 1, some more offseason roster turnover is just around the corner for Carolina.
While many fans clamor for the Hurricanes to re-sign Niederreiter, the cases to stay or go are both pretty strong for the rest of these guys. As the Hurricanes try to reload for another shot at the Stanley Cup next season, these offseason decisions will shape what that 2022-23 will look like.
