The Carolina Hurricanes will reach the halfway point of the 2023-2024 regular season Thursday, Jan. 11 when they take on the Anaheim Ducks. With 40 games under the team’s belt, what are the biggest takeaways from this season so far?
Hot or not?
Midway through this season, the Canes have felt very streaky compared to recent seasons.
No other position quite exemplifies this like the goaltending situation does. Once goaltender Frederik Andersen was put on injured reserve, Carolina struggled to find any consistency in goal. There have been times when the goalies looked like they couldn’t save anything and others where they have been by far the Canes’ best players.
Goaltender Antti Raanta stopped 21 of 22 shots vs the St. Louis Blues in what was one of his best performances of the season. Caniacs know it hasn’t been like that all season — for all goalies that have started five plus games this season for Carolina, no one has a worse save percentage than Raanta does this season at 0.861.
Netminder Pyotr Kochetkov has clawed his way back to a save percentage above 0.900. After a rough start to the season, the young Russian has consistently been making a positive impact. Claiming the No. 1 goalie spot for now, Kochetkov is the present and future, earning high praise from his teammates.
Goaltending isn’t the only thing that’s been hit or miss, for a while the Canes’ special teams have had their fair share of issues. At the beginning of the season, the penalty kill was below 80% — atypical for a Rod Brind’Amour-coached team. Not even a month ago, the power play unit was struggling to find an identity and consistent success but now they have seemingly struck gold.
In December, the Hurricanes gave up just two power play goals, a league low. Since the Christmas break, Carolina’s power play has been operating at 52.4%, a big part of the reason they lead the NHL in power-play goals scored this season.
The year of Seth Jarvis
No player has made quite as big of a jump from one season to the next like young center Seth Jarvis. In 42 fewer games, Jarvis has already matched his goal total from the prior season with 14 — eight of which have come with the man advantage — leading all Canes players.
Although scoring is the easiest thing to see on the stat sheet, it’s not even close to explaining why he continues to earn more opportunities. As a forward in Brind’Amour’s system, it is crucial to be defensively responsible, and Jarvis continues to get better in that area.
Leading the team in hits, Jarvis throws his body around like a wrecking ball. He is taking more faceoffs and getting more ice time than ever before and continues to prove why he is a top player. Every game he seems to pickpocket an opponent with the puck and create scoring opportunities.
Night in and night out, he brings the energy. If he continues to improve on the little things, the rest of the season should be exciting.
All-stars are all-starring
Carolina’s most recent all-stars center Sebastian Aho and right wing Andrei Svechnikov have shown why in previous seasons they’ve been selected as all-stars. They are the only two Hurricanes players to be averaging a point per game this season. On fire as of late, the two have combined for 30 points in the last seven games.
In past seasons, the Canes have been snake bitten by star players not producing goals in big moments. This season, however, Svechnikov and Aho rank first and second, respectively, in game-winning goals and have combined for a total of eight on the power play.
Aho earned another all-star selection this year and will represent the Hurricanes in Toronto. Aho has been the best all-around forward the Hurricanes have had for a couple of years and this season he seems to finally be putting it all together.
“He’s going [to All-Star Weekend] because he’s put up points, but what really should be known is how he does it,” Brind’Amour said. “We ask him to kill penalties, we ask him to be on the power play, and he’s special in every area of the game. He puts up the points, but really his 200-foot game and his overall team game are why he should be going.”
Don’t panic
By far the most important takeaway is to not panic. Carolina came into the season as Stanley Cup favorites and with high expectations. It’s easy to get caught up in every problem the team has when watching each game individually, but it’s important to zoom out every once in a while and look at the big picture.
The Hurricanes remain solidly in second place of the Metropolitan division while playing the most road games of any NHL team so far.
Every team has problems, but this team is still one of the best in the league. Halfway through the season, the Carolina Hurricanes are becoming that dangerous team the media predicted they’d be — there’s still 42 games left.
