Carolina Hurricanes are stuck in neutral

The Carolina Hurricanes, despite trying to move forward, keep getting complacent and stuck.

Over at Cardiac Cane, I covered the Carolina Hurricanes last season. Now, most teams seem to have some sort of underlying philosophy, guiding their decision-making, and evolution as a team.

Some teams, like the Arizona Coyotes, will learn from their years of misfortune and will attempt to shake things up. They did this by hiring a stats geek in John Chayka. The Coyotes are actively seeking out a new way to approach hockey.

More from Puck Prose

• Detroit Red Wings 2023 Rookie Camp Has Plenty of Ups and Downs
• This Columbus Blue Jackets rookie doesn’t want to be forgotten
• 2 trades the Boston Bruins must make to secure the Stanley Cup
• 3 reasons the Avalanche won’t win the Stanley Cup in 2024
• This is a big year for Alex Turcotte and the Los Angeles Kings

Other teams, like the Toronto Maple Leafs, have been able to accept bad situations, and have displayed an impressive patience. The Leafs were able to get a re-build started, and are now legitimate contenders.

The Hurricanes lack any sort of team philosophy. A team with intelligent management should not be changing their plans every few months. All year, this is exactly what the Canes have done.

To many, the Hurricanes are very much like the old Leafs. They simply can’t decide whether they want to contend or not. Instead of accepting a team can’t always improve from the outside, they have been trying to do so consistently.

When the Hurricanes are not in denial, they still can’t quite commit to a rebuild. Even when they looked like a decent team, everything was shaken up when Tom Dundon replaced Peter Karmanos as the main owner of the Hurricanes, just a month before the trade deadline.

This season, the Hurricanes didn’t quite make the Stanley Cup Playoffs. It appears they got considerably unlucky, and they would have made it most times out of 10. They were the top team in the league in terms of shot differential and had terrific advanced stats.

However, the decision was made that they were a bad team, because they didn’t make the playoffs, and GM Ron Francis was fired. Coach Bill Peters also left the team to join the Calgary Flames.

In addition to all of the management drama, the Hurricanes’ recent trades seem quite illogical.

A nonsensical offseason

If you look at the moves this team makes, you really have to wonder what they’re thinking. In June, they traded their best defenseman, in Noah Hanifin, for a slightly better defenseman in Dougie Hamilton. In doing this, they also sacrificed a potential 50 point scorer in Elias Lindholm and received an inferior forward in Michael Ferland.

This trade was essentially a giant coin toss. If Hanifin reaches the ceiling that a lot of people think he’s capable of, then the Flames win the trade. If he doesn’t, then the Hurricanes win the trade. This seemed like a huge gamble for both teams and I’m not sure why it even happened.

But you know what? If they had left it at that, it wouldn’t have mattered so much. They have one of the best defenses in the league, right? Hamilton is going to make it even better. This is a contending team, after all.

Additionally, Teuvo Teravainen and Sebastian Aho are the super Finnish duo the Canes have been waiting for. They even have Andrei Svechnikov now. The only thing left, is to fix up the goalie situation.

At this point, the Hurricanes signed Petr Mrazek. This leaves them with two goalies who finished with sub-.900 save percentages, this season. Do they really expect to contend with this tandem?

And then, to make things even worse, the Hurricanes traded Jeff Skinner in exchange for a potential prospect in Cliff Pu and three picks. This line of decision-making doesn’t follow any coherent logic.

Why would you trade a young, star defenseman, for a slightly more talented old-ish star defenseman? Well, for most people, this would imply an attempt at contention. If this is the case, why would you trade your team’s 4th highest scorer, for a prospect and a few picks?

How can a team change its philosophy so rapidly? No regular season games have been played, so a loss in confidence doesn’t seem very likely. I ask again, how does this team make decisions? With a magic eight ball?

There really isn’t much else to say. This one trade smashes any prediction that we had about the Hurricanes. Any possibility of a clear plan; a path to contention seems non-existent at this point.

Conclusion

The Hurricanes haven’t made the playoffs in a decade now, and fans are getting tired of it. To make the playoffs, you generally need to have some sort of plan, and the Canes simply don’t.

If rebuilding is the way to go, then the Hurricanes should be sticking to this plan. If this is the case, then Jeff Skinner should be the commencement of a broader strategy. However, if this is the only move Carolina ends up making, then I just see a sloppy and unorganized team.

I really want to see the Hurricanes improve. It really hurt to watch their collapse this season, which is why I’m so cynical about the state of management. Hopefully, they can find some sort of plan to stay with, and improve.