Not everyone on the Carolina Hurricanes is here to score goals, play lockdown defense, or stop pucks between the pipes. Some of them are here to run over people when the moment calls for it and provide a spark when the team needs it the most. William Carrier embodies that perfectly. Far from the flashiest player in the world, he's a warrior through and through.
The 2025-26 season saw Carrier a lot healthier than he has been in the last few years, which was already a big deal for the Hurricanes. It led to more points and a lot more hits. He played his role exactly how the team needed him to, finding a valuable spot on the fourth line with Eric Robinson and Mark Jankowski.
In a healthier season, Carrier turned into a wrecking ball
While he might not be the greatest finisher on the roster, Carrier knows what he is being paid to do. His job is to skate hard and throw his body into as many people as possible. In that respect, Carrier did his job very well last season. He led the team with 172 hits, posting his best total since 2019-20 with Vegas (213) and recording at least one in all but eight games that he played in.
It also helped that he was in the lineup a lot more this year, too. Outside of short absences early in the season and in mid-January, Carrier was largely healthy, suiting up for 70 games. Offensively, he was fine, keeping pace with his linemates. He scored seven times and added 11 assists. Carrier recorded a three-assist game at the end of the season in Chicago, the first three-assist and point game of his career.
In the playoffs, it was a lot of the same for Carrier. Through two rounds, he'd been held off the scoresheet entirely. In the Eastern Conference Finals, he got it going. Carrier picked up assists in the first two games and Game 5, the last of which was the gorgeous aerial flip on Robinson's breakaway goal. His final assist in Game 2 against Vegas set up Jankowski's tying goal.
What he lacked in scoring, Carrier made up for in hits against his opponents. In 19 games, Carrier laid 91 hits, averaging just under five per game and sitting third in the league overall. In Game 2s against Ottawa and Philadelphia, Carrier finished each contest with 12 hits. In the end, he got the better of his old team, hoisting the Stanley Cup in Vegas for the second time.
In Year 3, Carrier's continued health would make the fourth line trouble
When you have a player like Carrier whose primary objective is to hit people into oblivion, projecting what he'll do offensively is pointless. You could hope for something similar to last season, though he has never been known as a big scorer. He scored 16 goals in 2022-23 with the Golden Knights, but that was a clear anomaly. What Carrier did last season is more akin to what we should expect.
Instead, all we can really hope for is his health to stay on the right side. Obviously, he's a far more effective player when he's in the lineup. In 2024-25, Carrier was limited to 43 games, and he played in 39 games in his final season with Vegas. The fourth line is better with him in the lineup, and fewer lines are more defensively intimidating than when he's paired with Jordan Staal and Jordan Martinook.
It's still crazy that he's only one-third of the way through his contract, entering the third year of his six-year deal. He's not making a ton of money, though he saw a slight bump in his salary this year, earning $2.15 million against the salary cap. Carrier turns 32 in December, so he's still in a good spot to contribute for the next few years on the Canes' fourth line, which is still one of the best in the league.
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