Carolina Hurricanes: Five Lessons Learned Last Postseason

The Carolina Hurricanes took a lot of lessons learned last playoff run.

As we itch closer to the return of hockey, let us take a look at five lessons learned last postseason that can help the Carolina Hurricanes make another deep run this time around.

The Carolina Hurricanes finally ended their decade long playoff drought when they qualified for the playoffs this past season. Going on an unexpected run to the conference finals, it is safe to say the experience was extremely valuable for a young team and first year head coach.

Looking to officially qualify for their second straight postseason birth, they can now take what they learned from last season and build upon it this time around. While still a young team, they have the pieces in play to make another deep run.

Only time will tell how things will play out but I wouldn’t bet against Rod Brind’amour and his squad to make some noise yet again.  Already seen as a bit of an underdog to even qualify for the playoffs under the new format, many are quick to write off the Canes yet again.

Now, without further ado, let us take a look at five lessons from last year’s playoffs and how they can help Carolina make an even deeper run this time around.

 It Pays to Have Depth

The Carolina Hurricanes’ depth played a vital role

One of the first things the Carolina Hurricanes quickly learned last post season is that it pays to have depth up and down the lineup. With several injuries throughout to guys like Trevor van Riemsdyk, Micheal Ferland, Calvin De Haan and Jordan Martinook they were forced to play Clark Bishop, Patrick Brown, Greg McKegg and Aleksi Saarela a lot more than what they were probably planning on/hoping for.

While Ferland and Martinook’s injuries upfront caused a slight shift in the lineup, Andrei Svechnikov’s absence completely changed how opposing teams went about defending the Hurricanes’ attack.

On defense, it was clear that the coaching staff didn’t have the faith in Haydn Fleury to play him which, in turn, impacted the play of the Canes top four guys once TVR went down. In his nine appearances in the post season Fleury averaged only 7:42 of ice time per game versus the 26:10 and 25:29 of Jaccob Slavin and Justin Faulk.

In game 3 vs the Bruins he played just over three minutes while Slavin hit the 30 minute mark. Now Slavin is more than capable of playing big minutes, but to expect him to play each and every shift at a high playoff intensity level isn’t that realistic even with his great conditioning.

Luckily for Carolina this (hopefully) won’t be a problem this time around. Now possibly nine deep on defense, depending on when everything officially starts back up, there’s enough depth and quality players that Dean Chynoweth can evenly distribute ice time without seeing a big drop off in play from each of his defense pairs.

Special Teams Can Make or Break a Series

Special Teams was important for the Carolina Hurricanes

Probably the biggest reason the Carolina Hurricanes were swept by the Boston Bruins in the conference finals was their lack of special teams success. Although it’s never been a hallmark of the team, both the power play and penalty kill took a big hit in the playoffs.

During the 2018-19 regular season the Hurricanes’ power play produced at 17.8% rate, where as the penalty kill operated at a 81.6% efficiency. In the postseason, the power play fell to a success rate of 9% while the PK dropped to a 68% conversion rate.

In a short seven game series you need your special teams to capitalize whenever given a chance and the Canes failed to do so. Only finding the back of the net on five of their 52 power play chances, they need to see some improvement if they want to take another step forward this time around.

While you can’t win games on the man advantage, you can certainly lose it. Killing off only 35 of 51 of opposing team’s power plays throughout the postseason, it is clear that this was arguably the biggest cause for concern last spring. In the Hurricanes’ eight wins they only gave up a combined four PP goals against, good for .5 goals against per game.

On the flip side, in their seven losses, they gave up 12 PP goals, or a whopping 1.7 per, this needs to be addressed.

When you watch Hurricanes game Trip Tracy always says that if you want to have success you need your special teams’ percentages to add up to 100%, with anything over that a bonus. In the regular season the numbers did just that with a combined percentage of 99.4, which is close enough. In the playoffs however, their numbers only added up to 77, cleary not good enough.

A tough lesson to learn, let us hope that the story will be a bit different this time around. If the regular season is any indicator of what’s to come, the Hurricanes actual took some huge strides forward this year with their power play. Jumping up a bit to a 22.3% success rate, they were among the top ten teams in the league, finishing eighth.

On the penalty kill they finished among the top five teams during the regular season with a 84% efficiency. When you add the two percentages up, the Canes special teams combined to 106.3, much better than previous years.

As we saw last year however, the regular season doesn’t dictate how things will go in the playoffs, especially after this long hiatus. But we can hope that the positive steps taken will translate to a better performance in the postseason this time around.

Star Players Need to be Stars, but Anyone Can be a Hero

The Carolina Hurricanes had stars that rose in the playoffs.

Every Stanley Cup Champion has their fair share of star players. From the Sidney Crosbys and Patrick Kanes of the world, these guys are counted on to produce and are expected to produce when things get heated up in the postseason. While these types of players are vital to playoff success, anyone can come up clutch and be a hero.

Tying back into depth is key, championship teams get contributions up and down the lineup from anyone and everyone.

Last playoffs the Canes were getting that contribution up and down the lineup. In just 15 games they had four guys in double digits in goals and another three who were hovering in that territory. While you’d expect guys like Sebastian Aho and Teuvo Teravainen to produce, to see someone like Slavin put up 11, Foegele 9, Staal 10, McGinn 6,  etc. is really encouraging.

While Warren Foegele was probably the MVP of the Washington series, with his finger prints all over the ice in more than one way, it was Brock McGinn’s double overtime goal that is arguably the most memorable moment.

Of course none other than Mr. Game 7 himself, Justin Williams, was there to set up the play that sent Carolina onto the second round, but going into the game, may fans probably weren’t thinking the winning goal was going to come off of McGinn’s stick in double overtime.

This holds true every season. There’s always someone somewhere that goes a bit under the radar who makes that big play for his organization. Even former Hurricane Bryan Bickell made a name for himself in the playoffs, earning that lucrative contract that forced the Chicago Blackhawks to package him with Teravainen to clear cap.

It is these contributions form more depth players that will determine if a team will be successful in the postseason. With the margin for error so small, your role players are counted on now more than ever.

The Hurricanes seemed to have paid more attention to addressing this by bolstering their depth at the NHL level both in the offseason with the signings of Ryan Dzingel and Jake Gardiner as well as at the trade deadline with the trades for Vincent Trocheck, Brady Skjei and Sami Vatanen.

It’s Anyone’s Game

Anyone, including the Carolina Hurricanes, can take it all.

It’s been well documented how the St. Louis Blues defied the odds by going from worst to first in the entire league this past spring. It has been commonly debated that if your team isn’t in a playoff spot at or around Thanksgiving that the odds to make it are heavily against you.

Last year both the Canes and Blues were at the bottom of the league’s standings into January, which is pretty remarkable when they both ended up among the NHL’s final four in the playoffs.

Now the fact that the Blues won the cup wasn’t all that surprising, seeing that they entered the season with a lot of expectations after a strong off season, but it was the fact that they were able to go on the run that they did that late in the season. To climb out of the NHL’s basement and leapfrog several teams to even qualify for the playoffs shows that getting hot at the right time is helpful.

Matching up agains the defending champion Washington Capitals may people were quick to write off the Hurricanes. In the regular season the Caps had swept the season series and it appeared as if they were well on their way to doing so in the playoffs after taking games 1 and 2.

We all know the rest of the story, but Carolina rose to the occasion as the underdog and rallied to win four of the the next five games to advance to the second round. Like St. Louis’ run, the Canes proved that the playoffs are like a new season and that anyone can win.

With all the time off, this time around this statement is more true now than ever before.

The qualifying round will add another level of uncertainty. With players not hitting the ice in who knows how long, and teams limited to a short “training camps,” anyone can truly win the cup this time around.