Monday afternoon at PNC Arena, the Carolina Hurricanes’ players found themselves in a familiar place: at exit interviews on an early April day, trying to pinpoint the cause of another playoff miss. This season extends the Canes’ current drought to eight seasons, the longest such active streak in the league, as the team finished the year eight points out of a wild-card spot.
“Probably disappointing, I guess, is a good way to put it,” defenseman Justin Faulk said. “We’re in the same position we’ve been in every year I’ve been here, a couple years before that even. It’s tough; it’s not what you want. It’s never what the plan is going into the year. I thought we were in a good spot in the summer to maybe take another good step forward. As a group, we didn’t succeed, and that’s where we are today.”
Despite the miss, the Canes saw growth this season. The trio of young defensemen that made their mark last year as rookies in Noah Hanifin, Brett Pesce and Jaccob Slavin took another step forward. Finnish rookie forward Sebastian Aho made his mark in his debut season as a 19-year-old, ranking third in goals among rookies with 24. Forward Jeff Skinner set a career high in goals with 37, putting him sixth overall in the league. The team as a whole showed what it is capable of with a franchise-record, 13-game point streak to end the month of March before running out of both gas and time.
“I feel we have a great group of young talent poised to take that next step,” goalie Cam Ward said. “It’s disappointing to be standing here in front of you guys again trying to figure out why we fell short this time. For me personally, it’s now been eight years. That’s tough to deal with; it never gets any easier. You can’t help but think about the young potential that this organization has with the young talent. We saw some breakthrough players this year.”
Aside from offseason personnel changes that will be discussed at the coaches and management’s exit interviews Wednesday, there are a few things the current Canes will need to do to next season to get over the hump and into the postseason. That will begin with the season’s opening month. The Canes finished this past season with just two wins in eight games in October, including a 1-3-2 mark on a season-opening, six-game road trip. While it has been a point of conversation in exit interviews of years past, the Canes know they will need a better start next year.
“We talked about getting off to a good start; we didn’t necessarily have that either,” Faulk said. “We’ve got to find a way to do that, get some early points and put ourselves in a good position. You don’t necessarily need to be in first place, but you can’t be hanging by the bottom for too long and then expect to make a push and get back into it.”
Consistency was another issue for the team. While the Canes were able to put together strong stretches and find their way into playoff contention at different points throughout the year, it was the number of streaks in the opposite direction that did the team in. The aforementioned slow start, along with five-game losing streaks in both January and February ultimately kept the Hurricanes from reaching their ultimate goal this season.
“We were right there,” forward Jordan Staal said. “Obviously we were close. There was a few weeks throughout the season there where we strung together one too many losses in a row. That kind of kills you. Good teams maybe only lose one or two games in a row. We found a way to lose a few in a row, and we had to fight our way back to get even close [to the playoffs].”
Playing with the lead was also a bone of contention for Carolina this season. The team struggled to close out games on numerous occasions, including blown three-goal leads in each of the first two games, leaving precious points on the table. The Canes lost eight games when leading after two periods this year, two in regulation, six in overtime or the shootout. That’s 10 points thrown away for a team that finished eight short of the playoffs.
“We’ve just got to be able to finish out games,” Slavin said. “There were a lot of games this year where we had the lead going into the third period and either lost in overtime or just lost in regulation. Just being able to play the whole 60 minutes, I think sometimes we also finished strong the last two periods but it just wasn’t in time. Being able to play a full 60 next year [is important].”
If the Canes can do those things, the experience they gained this season should help them in their quest to end their league-leading streak of playoff misses. The franchise-best point streak in March got the team into the playoff picture, as the Canes were within four points of a wild-card spot entering the season’s final week. That experience of playing meaningful games down the stretch with their playoff lives on the line will give the Canes’ young players knowledge of how to play in those situations and confidence they can do so going forward.
“That was definitely a good learning experience, for us young guys especially that haven’t been a part of that,” Pesce said. “It was awesome to see around the room; everyone was excited to play. Everyone wants to make the playoffs, obviously, and I think guys stepped up their game and took it to the next level, which is awesome to see for next year.”
Players who have been in the postseason before understand just how valuable having a team full of players who have played in those situations can be. Forward Teuvo Teravainen, who won a Stanley Cup with the Chicago Blackhawks in 2015 is one of those who knows that importance.
“I think that’s good, because those games were a lot like playoff games,” Teravainen said. “We have to win those; we won a lot of those games. When there’s pressure and it’s that time of year, it’s hard to win games. When you show yourself and that you can win those games, it’s going to build your confidence. It’s going to be good for next year. If we’re closer, or we’re in the playoffs, we want to have that same kind of finish and that will help us to get in.”
With the growth of their young players and the franchise-record point streak, the Canes now know what they are capable of. The team heads into the offseason and the 2017-18 season, the 20th anniversary of the franchise’s relocation from Hartford to Carolina with one thing in mind: ending the drought and returning to the Stanley Cup playoffs for the first time since 2009.
“There’s a big feeling of that [unfinished business],” Skinner said. “I think with the talent and the players we have here now, it sort of feels like the expectation is higher. Not to say that it was low before, because I think you always expect to do well; you always expect to make the playoffs. I think it gets to a point where you have the talent that we have and you have to expect more with that. That’s something that you can use in the offseason.”
While the 2016-17 season ended in disappointment for the Carolina Hurricanes, it also offered signs of hope going forward. If the Canes can get some growth from their young players and build on the valuable experience gained this year, then there is a good chance that 2018’s exit interview day will not come nearly as early.
