Carolina Hurricanes: The Flaw in Rod Brind’amour’s System

Hurricanes Coach Rod Brind’Amour has done so well for this team in his 2 years in charge, but what needs to change to get the best out of this roster?

I want to start this off by saying that I was a huge advocate for giving Rod Brind’Amour the head coaching job in the first place. It was nice to see an in-house option get a shot at the head coaching job for a change. However, maybe Rod Brind’Amour’s style as the Hurricanes bench boss needs adjustment, and here’s why.

Before we explore why he might not be the right option to coach this team, let’s explore the kind of team he is right to coach. Look at the team last year. Mostly a team of grinders and fore-checkers. Rod Brind’Amour wants to play a classic dump and chase style game, where you can outwork the opponent. Carolina made the Eastern Conference Finals off the back of that.

Guys like Brock McGinn, Warren Foegele, Jordan Martinook, Joel Edmundson, those grind guys are what Rod loves. The reason he isn’t right for this roster is because this team isn’t built with grinders, it’s built with skill up and down the lineup. Guys like Andrei Svechnikov, Sebastian Aho, Teuvo Teravainen, Martin Necas are pure skill guys. There’s a clash of players strengths and coaching style here.

Rod needs to adjust his system to the skill set he has and unleash them to do what they do best. I’m by no means calling for his job now, but, if Rod continues to under-perform with a team of this skill set, I think the security of his job needs to be in question. This, on paper, is the best D core in the league and a top 5-10 forward core even without Dougie Hamilton.

Yet, they’re barely in a playoff spot.

You’re probably wondering who’s possibly around for the Hurricanes to hire if Roddy does lose his job. There’s some bum named Peter Laviolette who was recently fired by Nashville. He won the cup in 2006 with… oh what do you know, the Carolina Hurricanes! Failing Laviolette, there’s Gerard Gallant who got Vegas to the cup finals also looking for a job. But we are getting ahead of ourselves.

Now there is the rumored problem regarding Rod and Erik Haula. There’s a supposed falling out regarding Haula’s deployment time. He doesn’t think he’s being used enough, which makes sense. Haula is a top six player. Rod benched him against the Islanders and put him in the press box for the game against the Jets. Haula has been stuck as the 3C all year when he’s clearly better than Jordan Staal.

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I wanted Brind’amour to get this job from the second Tom Dundon let Bill Peters go. I wanted him to win cups in every year he was our head coach. But there’s a clash of system and style. Carolina have too many skilled young guys to play that dump and chase game. They can’t do the out fore-checking the opponent thing because the guys are better at other things.

This Hurricanes roster is skilled at undressing defenders, picking passes out with their eyes shut, and getting into the zone cleanly and doing what John Forslund called “the Harlem Globetrotters routine”. Roddy can’t continue to push this system across on the Canes because this team has a different strength. Either Rod needs to adapt to the roster, or allow someone else to coach it.

This is not me saying Rod Brind’Amour is a bad coach. Very far from it. He was very promising with the team he had. But the system he runs is better for the more physical teams, and better for teams with a lack of skill players, of which the Hurricanes now have plenty. I still stand by my comment that Rod should have been in the Jack Adams award voting last year for best head coach.

Question for CC Readers: Do you believe that RBA should adjust his system?