Cardiac Cane
Fansided

Carolina Hurricanes: Why the Playoffs Should be Priority Number One

By Omar Abdelgawad

RALEIGH, NC - MAY 26: Eric Staal #12 of the Carolina Hurricanes celebrates his first period goal against the Pittsburgh Penguins during Game Four of the Eastern Conference Championship Round of the 2009 Stanley Cup Playoffs at RBC Center on May 26, 2009 in Raleigh, North Carolina. The Penguins defeated the Hurricanes 4-1 to clinch the NHL's Eastern Conference title.(Photo by Grant Halverson/Getty Images)
RALEIGH, NC - MAY 26: Eric Staal #12 of the Carolina Hurricanes celebrates his first period goal against the Pittsburgh Penguins during Game Four of the Eastern Conference Championship Round of the 2009 Stanley Cup Playoffs at RBC Center on May 26, 2009 in Raleigh, North Carolina. The Penguins defeated the Hurricanes 4-1 to clinch the NHL's Eastern Conference title.(Photo by Grant Halverson/Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
2 of 5
Next

The Value of Playoff Experience

The most immediate value the team will receive as they play their first playoff series in almost a decade is playoff experience. When you break down the current roster, you’ll find that playoff experience is very short. I was going to talk more about who needed playoff experience on this roster, however as I compiled my list, I realized that it was easier to discuss who actually had playoff experience.

Starting from the top down, the man with the most experience is the captain Justin Williams. Having made the playoffs with four separate teams, winning the Stanley Cup with two of them (including our own Carolina Hurricanes in 2006), his experience has translated to leadership. Of the rest of the offense, only Micheal Ferland, Jordan Staal, and Teuvo Teravainen have any NHL playoff experience; the most recent being Ferland in the 2017 playoffs with Calgary. That’s a total of only four of the eighteen forwards the Carolina Hurricanes have put on the ice this year – only 22%.

Defense looks a lot better thanks to trades and free agency pickups. Calvin de Haan, Dougie Hamilton, and Trevor van Riemsdyk all have playoff experience with their former teams. That makes it three of the nine defensemen that have played this year. Problem is that two of them just showed up to replace Noah Hanifin and Klas Dahlbeck, neither of whom had any playoff experience.

All three goaltenders, funny enough, have playoff experience. Whats even funnier is that of the three, it’s only Scott Darling that has had the pleasure of lifting the Stanley Cup when he won it with the Chicago Blackhawks.  While it may not have translated to better performances from Scott Darling, Petr Mrazek and Curtis McElhinney have both played really well in recent games. Both played at least one playoff game last season.

The biggest thing to notice is that our biggest and best players on both sides of the puck do not have any playoff experience. Players like Sebastian Aho and Jaccob Slavin, arguably the best players on this team, have zero playoff experience. Justin Faulk, multiple All-Star, former co-captain, and current alternate captain has zero playoff experience. Simply making the playoffs will elevate their game, and elevate their value.

The expectations of their performance will be that of a player with playoff experience. They would know it and we would know it. Suddenly the playoffs aren’t a mythical beast for them to conquer, it’s a been there, done that situation where the expectations are to make a deep run.

Home/Editorials