Carolina Hurricanes Season Ends With Game Five Loss Against Bruins

The Carolina Hurricanes are no longer in the Stanley Cup Playoffs

The Carolina Hurricanes saw their season come to an end as the Bruins defeat them in game five to advance to the Second Round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

It’s over. The 2019-2020 NHL Season for the Carolina Hurricanes is over. Good Riddance. Now I know that that last short two-word sentence just jarred you, but I will get to it and by the end of this article it will make sense.

This will not be your typical breakdown article, because there is no tomorrow for the Carolina Hurricanes. There is no lessons to be learned overall. There are major adjustments to be made over the lengthy offseason, and we will talk about them in their own articles deservingly, but there are no small takeaways to discuss because the season is over.

So what happened? The game started well. Haydn Fleury netted his second playoff goal of his young career on an absolute rocket of a shot that goes bardown. The Carolina Hurricanes played excellent defense and offense, but nothing happened for them after that.

The Bruins went on the powerplay a few times and they got theirs to work scoring the tying and game-winning goals. Then they kept Carolina out of the back of their net for the rest of the game. The third period was an opportunity, a calling card for the Hurricanes to come back into this game, but they never answered and were thusly removed from contention.

The Carolina Hurricanes should have gone into this series and owned the Bruins. They should have gone into this series and picked right off where they left off with the Rangers, But they ended up only winning a single game and giving up multiple leads throughout including today.

They showed no passion nor did they show any true hustle in today’s game. And Boston came in and they took it. Like candy from a baby. Carolina tried to play Carolina Hockey and for some reason, it doesn’t work against Boston. Now they have the opportunity to look at their style and reevaluate before next season.

But it wasn’t all bad. The goalies have been phenomenal. Both Petr Mrazek and James Reimer have held their own in the series (mishaps withholding). This isn’t a team that god demolished either. They lost all but one game by a single goal. Had game one in OT gone the other way, perhaps it would be Carolina moving into the second round today. Rod Brind’Amour put it best:

"“I’m really proud of this team. They do it right. We responded … we walk out of here head-high.”"

There is also the aspect of the future of this team. There is a lot of young talent that has still not hit their full potential. Andrei Svechnikov, Martin Necas, Haydn Fleury, and even Sebastian Aho are going to get better next year. The chemistry on this team will also increase. Team Captain Jordan Staal is also excited about the future:

"“That’s the exciting thing about the Carolina Hurricanes: the future is bright.”"

Does that mean we can forgive today’s loss? No, we should be playing Hockey tomorrow, but we just aren’t. We should be looking to tie this series up in 24 hours, but we won’t be. We should be wondering who our next opponent is, but now our concern is the upcoming draft. It is okay to be frustrated, upset, angry, or miserable after this series. God knows I am.

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But through all that emotion, I still love this team. This team has been better than any Hurricanes team in the last decade. They have room to improve even more, yes, but that is something we get to witness. This team will make the playoffs again and again. This team is built to last, and not make sporadic runs to the conference finals every so often. So look forward to the future.

And I know there are many unanswered questions after that game and that series. Will Justin Williams ever play hockey again? Can the Carolina Hurricanes fix this powerplay? Does the Goaltending need to be addressed? Is the problem a lack of talent or a lack of grit? Excellent questions that we have a full offseason to address.

For now, take a moment to drink in the whole season, from every glorious minute to the next, and lay it to rest. The season is over.

On to the next.

Question for CC Readers: Which Team are you rooting for now?