The Carolina Hurricanes have made it to the Stanley Cup Finals on the back of an excellent season in a tough division in a tough conference. But which three games can we say saved the whole season?
82 games. That is what the modern NHL season looks like. This year the Carolina Hurricanes won 46 of them and forced another 7 into overtime to earn themselves 99 points and a ticket to the dance. Each one of those games carried value towards that result.
There were some edge of your seat games and there were some real heart-breakers this year. There were also some games that almost doomed the season, and there were some that saved it from certain doom. While it is easy to simply dismiss each win as being critical to the success of the team (they each were), lets pinpoint the top three games that turned the tide.
These three games I have selected may be the most critical and memorable wins of the season. Without them, this season would have been lost. One game may have actually saved our entire season and could have been the difference between playing a game on Thursday and wondering what we were going to do with our 15th overall draft pick.
As I go through these games, you will notice a theme, each of them ended in extra minutes. Each of them were going one way up until they didn’t and each of them resulted in two points for the Carolina Hurricanes. Most importantly, each game was a passionate filled game that showed the fans, that for the first time in ten years, this time was really going to be different.
These games might not just be the three most important games of this season. If the Carolina Hurricanes keep moving forward like they have and their prospect pipeline allows them to build the dynasty that Tom Dundon keeps talking about, these games might resemble more of the turning point for the franchise that has pushed the team towards more than just being “relevant”.