Starting against Toronto, the Carolina Hurricanes began a grueling schedule with only two home games out of eleven.
The Carolina Hurricanes aren’t very good on the road. On their road trip to start the season, Carolina only won one game against Calgary for a 1-2-2 record. Overall on the road this year the Hurricanes are a sub .500 team with a 3-4-4 record. Compared to their home record of 5-3-0 it is easy to see the Hurricanes find winning on the road very difficult. With a five-game winning streak recently ended in Montreal, the Hurricanes find themselves almost in a playoff spot. But the NHL scheduling committee isn’t doing the team any favors after the long home stand and sends the team back out on the road for the next nine out of eleven games.
The First Road Trip
The Hurricanes started this one against Toronto which they won 2-1. They followed up with a tough game against Montreal they saw them lose by the same score with Carey Price playing phenomenal to keep a hard pressing Canes team to one goal. Up next is the Ottawa Senators. The Hurricanes played them once already which they lost 2-1 in OT. As of the writing this article, the Senators sit in third in the Atlantic Division with 25 points. That puts the Senators three and four points ahead of the Boston Bruins and Florida Panthers respectively. A comfortable cushion, but not insurmountable. This makes the game against the Senators that much more important. Because taking four point swings against possible wild card teams are what the Canes need to keep their playoff hopes alive
The Second Road Trip
After three away the Hurricanes come back home for a game against the Florida Panthers. Then it is back on the bus for a northeast U.S road trip with two games against the Rangers and one against the Bruins. The Rangers are the Metropolitan Division leaders with four points over second place Penguins. There are a couple of warning signs that the Rangers aren’t as good as their record. One is they are in the bottom third of the league when it comes to CF%, and another is they are number one in PDO at 104.08. This time it isn’t Henrik Lundqvist doing all the heavy
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lifting as the Rangers shoot at an outstanding 12.15%. That is almost 3 points higher than the next-closest Toronto. The Carolina Hurricanes showed they can beat New York before, they should take at least one game in the series.
But don’t overlook the Bruins. They are number one in the league in Score and Venue adjusted Corsi, and Tuukka Rask is playing like Tuukka Rask from three years ago. Unlike the Canes, though, the Bruins are better on the road than at home. Hopefully, Carolina can use this to their advantage and pull out a win against a team right now two points ahead of them in the standings.
The Third Road Trip
This trip takes the Carolina Hurricanes out west to face the California teams with games against the Sharks, Kings, and Ducks. The Hurricanes beat the Sharks at home, lost to the Ducks, and haven’t yet played the Kings. These teams are three playoff teams, but all three of these games are winnable.
The Kings will still be without Quick, and their defense this year isn’t as good as the past. Randy Carlyle still coaches the Ducks, and any team with him at the helm will never be that good. The Sharks will probably present the greatest challenge. San Jose leads the division after winning three games in a row, and are a very good team that finally seems to be putting things together after a slow start.
Can It Be Done?
Right now the margin of error remains razor-thin for the Carolina Hurricanes. There are a lot of good teams ahead of them jockeying for those final two playoff spots. The Blue Jackets show no sign of slowing down yet despite their horrible underlying stats. The Devils, while without Hall and Cammalleri, still have Schneider a top 3 goalie. That alone could keep them above the cutoff line. The third is Boston and as mentioned above they play really good hockey and have a great goaltender as well. To keep the playoff hopes alive the Canes probably need to go 2-1 in almost all of these road trips. They have the systems in place to do it, the only question that remains is will they?