Forgive me, but I’m going to steal a quote from one of my favorite television shows to describe the Carolina Hurricanes season and their current situation.
“There are 162 games in a major league baseball season and the players have a saying ‘Every team’s going to win 54 games, every team’s going to lose 54, it’s what you do with the other 54 games that counts.'”
The Hurricanes have 51 games under their belt. They sit with a record of 23-20-8 and 54 points. The critical question now is, what are they going to do with the final 31 games, and will it be enough to make the playoffs?
I say emphatically ‘YES’.
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I want to take you back to a “young and hungry” Hurricanes team at the start of the 2008-09 NHL season. They had lost some veteran players to retirement, another handful to trades, and almost a third of their team was brand new.They had just come off a disappointing season that saw them miss the playoffs again, and every indication was that this would be a rebuilding season.
They were plagued with injuries throughout the first few months of the season, which meant a lot of call-ups from their minor league team. It was almost some sort of revolving door. They worked through a starting goalie being injured, character players being sidelined, young rookies and minor-leaguers having to carry much of the load. Hell, they even weathered a coaching change mid-season.
Carolina Hurricanes
With all those challenges they finished the first fifty games with a respectable 53 points. Not great…not bad…just kind of in the middle. Not a playoff record, many said.
Jump forward to the present day. The Canes are at 54 points. They have a lot of new players, most of them not old enough to rent a car. They’ve had injuries up and down the roster. They’ve plumbed the talent in Charlotte a few times. The pundits have said it’s a rebuilding season. A young team looking to the future. A good team, but not good enough to make the playoffs.
Sound familiar?
So, it’s established that the 2015-16 Hurricanes bear a striking resemblance to the Canes of 2008-09 after fifty games. But those games are done. Nothing can be done about them now. We are at 54 points. We need another 40 to have a chance at the post-season. Can we do it?
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Again, I say emphatically, ‘YES”.
I go to the remaining schedule to make my case. Based on the remaining teams the Hurricanes play, the record they have against those teams this season, and their opponents’ current standings and records, we can estimate what their final record could be.
Of the remaining games, the Canes are not favored in six of them…two against the Lightning, and one each against the Capitals, Panthers, Rangers and Sharks.
The Hurricanes are favored to win 13 of the last 32…two against the Blue Jackets, Canadiens, Jets, Sabres and Senators, and one each against the Flames, Flyers and Leafs.
That leaves twelve games that could ‘Go Either Way’. The teams we face in these twelve games are the Blues, Bruins, Devils, Islanders, Penguins and Wild. These are games that the Canes should be very competitive in, and most are teams that they have beaten before.
If the Canes lose all of those 12 games they don’t deserve to be in the playoffs. That, though, is unlikely.
If the Canes were to win just a quarter of those games, their record would be 16-6-9 for 41 points. This would probably get them into that situation where they either squeak in by one point, or are out by the same…remember the 6-2 loss to Tampa on the final day of the 2010-11 season, with a playoff spot on the line??
If they win half of the 12 games they will finish the final stretch at 19-6-6 and a final point total of 98. This is a more comfortable finishing number considering that the final wild card spots have been captured with 91-94 point spread over the last decade.
And finally, if we get on a good roll, and win two-thirds of the ‘Go Either Way’ games, the Hurricanes would go 22-6-3 in the final games of the season. They would finish strong with 101 points, and would be solidly in the post-season.
Sounds like a pipe-dream, doesn’t it? I can hear all the pundits and naysayers saying “Can’t be done. It’ll never happen.”
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Well, that 2008-09 Hurricanes team that went through all the drama in the first 51 games of their season and were sitting at 55 points? They had a 20-9-2 record from January 31 to April 11, finished with 97 points, and claimed a playoff spot with a 6th place finish in the Eastern Conference.
Anyone wanna tell me the Hurricanes can’t make the playoffs this year? If so leave a comment below or contact us on Facebook or Twitter.
Go Canes!