Carolina Hurricanes: Three takeaways from brutal loss to Pittsburgh

2. Wake Up

The last six games the Hurricanes have played have been the biggest six in recent memory. They have lost four of them. They probably should have lost five. The only remaining game was against a wallowing Philadelphia Flyers team with Cam Talbot in goal. And we gave a late third period goal to make things somewhat interesting in that game too.

Justin Williams attempted to wake his team up late in the first period, taking a roughing penalty after mixing things up with Patric Hornqvist, but to no avail. Somebody needs to say something to somebody else if the Hurricanes are going to squeak out the last playoff spot.

Micheal Ferland has been a non-factor for a long time and I am not exactly sure what to make of it. Perhaps it has been lingering injury issues from December or perhaps he has not found chemistry with new linemates in Lucas Wallmark and Jordan Martinook, but something is off.

Goaltending, I don’t think, has been the issue, but it has not saved us in some ways that it had in the past. I am reminded of the March game in Florida where Petr Mrazek had a diving poach check in overtime that led to a Sebastian Aho game winning goal. Man, does that seem like a long time ago.

Not to mention, Calvin de Haan left the game early with what looked like a bad injury to either his wrist or shoulder. He did not come back to the game and does not look to be anywhere near healthy enough to finish the road trip:

Presumably, this means that Haydn Fleury will get a call up for at least the Toronto game. He has played well in his time in the NHL this season and hopefully he can bring it tomorrow night. We need everything we can get.