Another painful playoff exit has passed for the Carolina Hurricanes. There was, and still is, a lot to digest when talking about the Florida Panthers' 4-1 series win against Carolina. Many have, and will, overreact to what happened, but the fact remains that the Hurricanes are still bridesmaids in the Eastern Conference.
There are a number of important takeaways for everyone to think about moving forward into a pivotal offseason for the franchise.
Takeaway 1: Struggling players likely out the door
Florida took it to Carolina for most of the conference finals. While it is tough to blame specific players for a hefty defeat, both Dmitry Orlov and Jesperi Kotkaniemi had a tough series, and the two could see themselves out of Raleigh before the start of next season.
It is safe to say the Kotkaniemi project has not panned out as the Hurricanes envisioned when they signed him to an eight-year extension in 2022. The 24-year-old has had an up-and-down time in Carolina. While Kotkaniemi is a serviceable middle-six center, he is not good enough to be on a team with Cup aspirations, and the last series against Florida showed it.
A bad offensive-zone penalty up 2-0 in Game 5 led to a goal against and changed the momentum of the game. His line struggled to generate offense, and he was even scratched in Game 2 for Jack Roslovic. This isn't what you expect from someone paid nearly $5 million. The Hurricanes' patience with his development has likely run its course after having a negative impact in the series loss.
Orlov played with Jalen Chatfield almost exclusively all season until Chatfield was out of the lineup for the entirety of the series against Florida with an injury. Losing the steady defenseman to injury led Orlov to struggle mightily with different defensive partners. To be fair to him, having to go against a dynasty-level team with one of the youngsters as your partner is a tall order. Nevertheless, Orlov did not perform well in the conference final. He's a pending free agent, and it's uncertain if Carolina will bring him back next season, if they even should.
Scott Morrow is another player who played poorly. He was thrown into the fire this postseason due to injuries and struggled. It is worth noting that he's young and still developing, and is the one player out of the three mentioned who is likely not going anywhere. The fact is that Morrow was not good. Costly mistakes led to multiple goals in the Game 1 loss. After that game, he had limited ice time as Brind’Amour went to five defensemen, likely to keep Morrow off the ice as much as possible.