Rewind: What happened to the 2006-07 Carolina Hurricanes?
By Jeb Bohn
After experiencing the greatest high in professional hockey, the Carolina Hurricanes became the first team in 11 years to miss the playoffs in the season after winning the Stanley Cup. What happened?
This is the tenth installment in my Rewind series, taking a look at the Carolina Hurricanes of seasons past. To check out the prior entries, select a season below:
The result of this season was unexpected, but should it have been? Coming off of the best season in franchise history, the Carolina Hurricanes, who had made the most of the revamped post-lockout NHL, suffered a setback. They still managed to put up 40 wins, though they ultimately fell 4 points out of a playoff spot.
We’re going to change things up with this one as we take a look at what went wrong with Carolina’s Cup defense and the season as a whole. Let’s start by taking a look at some roster changes.
Doug Weight and Mark Recchi, acquired as rentals for a playoff push, departed in the offseason. While keeping one or both would have been nice, that wasn’t part of General Manager Jim Rutherford‘s plan. Neither move came as a surprise, so we move on. Matt Cullen, who picked up 18 points in the Hurricanes’ run to The Cup also departed, signing with the New York Rangers. He was joined by defenseman Aaron Ward.
As free agency opened, the Hurricanes were relatively quiet. They signed former Tampa Bay Lightning netminder John Grahame to back up Cam Ward; the young goalie was slated to become the starter after Martin Gerber signed with the Ottawa Senators.
The team also signed utilitarian winger Trevor Letowski to bolster their forward depth. In another depth move, Rutherford inked big winger Brad Isbister to a one-year contract.
Rutherford also completed a couple of trades before the onset of the season in the hopes of strengthening his team. The first deal took place on July 18 when he sent longtime Hurricane Josef Vasicek to the Nashville Predators for rough and tumble winger Scott Walker.
The second trade drew much more attention as it involved Carolina’s first-round pick from the 2005 draft, Jack Johnson. Frustrated by the promising defenseman’s unwillingness to commit, Rutherford packaged Johnson with fellow rearguard Oleg Tverdovsky and shipped them to the Los Angeles Kings. In return, the Hurricanes received physical defender Tim Gleason as well as center Eric Belanger.
With the roster set, the Hurricanes opened the season as the defending champs.
That sheen wore off quickly.