Are Injuries Dooming the Carolina Hurricanes’ Playoff Chances?

The Carolina Hurricanes have added four players to their injury roster since February 22nd and haven’t won a game since.

Dougie Hamilton, Brett Pesce, Petr Mrazek, James Reimer, and Sami Vatanen. Those are the five players on the injury list for a Carolina Hurricanes team that can really use just one of them right now. In fact since the injury to Hamilton, this team has completely lost its identity.

Before the Hamilton injury the Hurricanes were 27-18-2 (0.596 point percentage) including the loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets that fateful day. Since then they are only 8-7-3 (0.527 point percentage). That’s not much of a drop off in point production for the team. In fact the loss of Hamilton seemed manageable at first with the team carrying the extra defender anyway.

Then came the famous EBUG game against Toronto that saw David Ayres come in and make history. That game saw three more Canes fall to injuries and that is when the issues started to arise.

The Dougie Hamilton Injury on its own didn’t bother this Hurricanes team. In fact between his injury and the EBUG game the Hurricanes were 8-4-2 (0.643 point percentage) and well on their way to climbing back up the Metro Division. That allowed Don Waddell and the Hurricanes to relax and plan their Trade deadline strategy.

But when both goalies and Pesce got hurt, things started to spiral out of control. In an effort to pad the defense back up and add more offensive support the Hurricanes added Brady Skjei, Sami Vatanen, and Vincent Trocheck.

Vatanen came to Carolina injured and has yet to complete a full practice with the team after suffering a setback to his recovery. But he is traveling with the team, there is a bit of good news there.

The biggest loss has been Brett Pesce. A quiet anchor for the Hurricanes defense, Pesce’s defense is sorely missed as the Hurricanes can’t seem to keep the opponents from driving the net unchecked without Jaccob Slavin or Haydn Fleury being on the ice.

Joel Edmundson‘s defensive habits are starting to leave a lot to be desired as he seems to have regressed since his Stanley Cup win with the Blues. Jake Gardiner has been solid, but his few mistakes have a bad habit of being capitalized on almost immediately. Even Brady Skjei and Trevor Van Riemsdyk have been caught out of position or given up bad turnovers lately.

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The biggest issue has been their inability to clear their zone. This falls on all the players on the ice however not just the injury riddled defense. This has kept the Hurricanes from being able to press the offensive zone. The math here is simple, if you can’t get it out so you can play offense, you are going to get scored on more than you are going to score.

That has been the leading reason for the recent losses. Add on a pair of Goalies that have been thrust into the starting roles and you have a shaky defensive core in front of a netminding duo that has not been recently tested against NHLers. The results have been as expected as the Hurricanes have only been able to steal a single point in the last four games.

The good news is that despite the recent losses the NHL and the Metro Division haven’t left the Canes behind just yet. With a more than a few games in hand on the competition and plenty of key matchups up ahead, they have a chance to come together and not let the recent injuries take them out of contention.

Now we know that Pesce and Hamilton will not return this season. But there is still hope for Vatanen and the netminders. If the Hurricanes can play better together, for each other, they can put the team in position for the injured to return to a roster that is looking to compete deep into April and beyond.