The Carolina Hurricanes went into the brotherly city of love looking for two points against a tired team but ran into the hottest team in the league instead.
I do not know who the Carolina Hurricanes are anymore. I don’t think they do either. For sixty minutes last night they broke our hearts and failed to show the kind of heart, tenacity, and chemistry that we had late last season when the team made it’s run for the playoffs. No, instead a team that had four days of rest was manhandled by a better team that played the previous night.
Right now there isn’t a better team in the National Hockey League than the Philadelphia Flyers. Last night saw them cap a winning streak at eight games while the Canes have a single point in the standings since February 22nd and only a single win in the last two weeks.
Their playoff chances are not dead thanks to loses by the Islanders and Panthers. But they have been pushed down to seventh in the division thanks to a win by the New York Rangers over the Capitals in overtime. The Capitals got a point however that kept the Flyers from overtaking them for division lead because of they hold the ROW tiebreaker.
So what went wrong for this Hurricanes team?
Why are we looking ahead to the rest of this month dreading the possibility that after all the fun and winning that happened earlier in the season, this team might be on the outside looking in when April rolls around?
Its because this team simply is without several of its key players that seem to have carried this team and the chemistry is simply gone.
But there is some good to take away from this game as well. But I’ll get to that. For now lets look at these takeaways