Carolina Hurricanes: Early Observations for 2019-2020

With only nine games into the 2019-2020 season, the Carolina Hurricanes have made a statement. Let’s discuss some observations of what has happened so far.

Just a few weeks into the 2019-2020 NHL season, the Carolina Hurricanes have roared out of the gates winning five games in a row for the best start in franchise history. Recently they have struggled on the west coast trip but with a current record of 6-3-0 (12 points), they currently sit 3rd in the metropolitan division and 8th in the league.

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Though it may be premature to say whether the Hurricanes are  Stanley Cup contenders or not, we can say they are playing very entertaining hockey full of comebacks, drama, and great plays. From Shootout saves to OT thrilling goals from the defense. Goalies on both ends of the ice retiring to the showers early. Even a Shutout. This season has it all already.

Many factors have contributed to the success and the struggles of this burgeoning season. Some are good factors, some are less so. Some are things to get really excited for and some we with would go away real fast and allow this team to thrive.

All in all, here are the observations from the season only nine games in. lets see how long these last. Now let’s look closely at how the season has gone so far.

Day and Night on the Power Play Again

The bane of the Carolina hurricanes existence has reared its ugly head once again for the 2019-2020 season. The main difference this year is more a matter of consistency than a matter of being abysmally bad.

Last season, the Carolina Hurricanes ranked 19th in the NHL on the power play, scoring with a percentage of 17.7%. To be honest, most of that came near the end of the season when the PP unit finally got hot. For most of last season, the Hurricanes struggle to even enter the zone on the power play let alone score a goal. They were almost better off declining the penalty.

A similar situation exist this year. However almost in reverse as they started off the season showing a lot of promise. With the addition of Eric Haula and fast puck movement, the power play unit showed a lot of promise scoring four PP goals in just four games. That’s a lot of free boberry biscuits folks.

Then when the team traveled west the Power Play seemed to fall apart, once again struggling to even enter the zone. On the road the power play proved to be ineffective. To make matters worse the one bright spot, Haula, then was injured during the game at Anaheim.

This Power Play unit has shown promise and glimpses of greatness, bu it’s just glimpses for now. Maybe there needs to be a personnel shake up in the units to bring this PP back to life, but the Carolina Hurricanes can not have a repeat of last year on the power play.

Solid But Not Perfect

One of the main questions that many hockey pundits had for the Carolina hurricanes coming into the season was whether their goaltending would be consistent enough to win.

So far the goalie tandem of Petr Mrazek and James Reimer have rose to the challenge. Both are proving to be more reliable than many of thought previously.

Petr Mrazek ,coming off a fantastic postseason and a new contract,  has so far proven why he is Carolina’s number one goaltender with a 5-1-0 record including a shutout vs the LA Kings, a shootout win vs Montreal in the season opener, and OT win vs Tampa Bay with his former teammate Curtis McElhinney in the opposing net.

His one lone bad game was against the Ducks, where he was yanked after giving up 4 goals in quick fashion. Otherwise he was looked pretty well.

Many people discussed who was going to be the back up for Peter Mrazek this season, and after winning the job, Reimer is performing well with wins at both Washington and Florida.
Just bought these for goalies continue to perform to their potential, look out the Hurricanes good have a dangerous goalie tandem.

When One Goes Down, Others Step Up

During the off-season, the leadership had a major shake up for the Carolina Hurricanes. With their captain Justin Williams deciding to take a break and focused on his health and Justin Faulk being traded , the leadership needed to be passed.

Rod Brind’Amore decided on Jordan Staal to pick up the captaincy, with Jaccob Slavin and Jordan Martinook picking up the “A”s. A mix of veterans and young blood with the letters is definitely a nice change of pace and the locker room has rallied behind them.

Now with Martinook, unfortunately, out for a few more week after successful abdomen surgery, the depth of leadership in the hurricane locker room begin to show. People like Sebastian Aho and Teuvo Teravainen are beginning to show their leadership skills as the backup alternate captains in Marty’s absence.

I’ll say this if having to many leaders is a bad thing, then this is a problem I will happily take.

PNC Arena is Filling Up

You if you have Twitter or Facebook as a hurricanes fan and more likely you will find people posting old pictures of how empty the arena used to be during games just a few years ago. Well it doesn’t look like that anymore.

Carolina Hurricanes

Two years ago, the Hurricanes didn’t even average 12,000 fans per game. At the end of last season, the Hurricanes averaged just over 14,000 fans per game. So far, The average attendance is over 15,000 fans a game! It’s been loud, the storm surge is back, and the fan base has been revived.

The loudest house in the NHL is back for the regular season! PNC Arena is filling up with more and more fans who have definitely gotten their money’s worth for the home games so far this season with shootouts, overtimes, comebacks and more. Don’t forget to mention the new Jumbo-tron.

All these things combined have been major contributors to the Carolina Hurricanes raging start. Now they need to work harder so that the mid-season slump that occurred last year wont  happen again this year. Just like all things, they have to earn it.

Question for the CC readers: What is the biggest observation you have seen from the Carolina Hurricanes so far?