Carolina Hurricanes: The Success of Rod Brind’Amour

Rod Brind’Amour has been the Carolina Hurricanes’ Head Coach for only two years but has already found ample success.

Rod Brind’Amour was hired as the next Carolina Hurricanes Head Coach exactly two years ago. Since then he has done the one thing that the previous two head coaches could not, take the team to the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

In fact, the last time the team had gotten to the playoffs, Rod Brind’amour was the Captain of the team. Some would argue that the only real reason the Carolina Hurricanes have been able to make the playoffs is Rod Brind’amour.

This season, before the COVID pandemic, he had the team on pace to do something that hasn’t been done by the franchise since the 01-02 season! Make the playoffs in back to back years. Crazy to think that a team with four conference finals appearances, two Stanley Cup appearances, and a Cup in 21 years has only made the playoffs back to back once. But it’s true!

Rod Brind’amour’s first season has a few more accolades:

Rod Brind’Amour is technically the sixth head coach of the Carolina Hurricanes, however, only four other men have held the position.

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Paul Maurice and Peter Laviolette have each found a measure of success with the team, each taking the team to the Stanley Cup Playoffs once, however only Laviolette would win the cup in 2006.

Kirk Muller and Bill Peters, on the other hand, have been the orchestrators of a nine-year postseason drought that was one season shy of the record shared by the Oilers and Panthers. Makes you appreciate Rod Brind’Amour saving the whole franchise practically.

With 150 games coaches under his belt, let’s compare Brind’Amour’s efforts as the Head Coach against the history. As it stands, by point percentage, RBA is the winningest coach in the regular season with a 0.600 points %. That is not only across the history of the Carolina Hurricanes but the Whalers as well!

Only Laviolette, with his Stanley Cup winning-run in 2006 has a higher win% in the playoffs than Rod Brind’amour. Again this is across the entire history of the franchise, not only the Carolina portion.

In only two years Rod has managed to pole-vault himself to the top of the list of Carolina Hurricanes head coaches. Hopefully, when the season returns we can see him add onto his list of wins and leapfrog his way to the very top in a new playoff run.

Question for CC Readers: What was your reaction to the RBA hire two years ago?