After the break, Canes need offensive boost

By Adam Gold

The Carolina Hurricanes are on winter vacation. Whether soaking up the sun or taking the family to the Magic Kingdom, players, coaches and team officials have a mandated, four-day break before resuming the schedule Saturday night in Detroit. (They will practice Friday in Raleigh.) And, when they return to the ice they’ll face a very bumpy road to snapping the ongoing 8-year postseason drought.

The Hurricanes will resume the schedule in last place in the Metropolitan Division — either alone or tied with the Philadelphia Flyers. They will be at least three points out of a wild card spot, but unless the Rangers and Penguins each lose twice in regulation before 7 p.m. Saturday, the deficit will almost certainly be larger.

The team is likely to be without leading scorer Sebastian Aho, victim of a gruesome collision with Calgary defenseman Mark Giordano that left the second-year scoring whiz with a concussion and a significant left knee injury. On the bright side, no surgery was deemed necessary, but there is nothing conclusive about when a player can return from a head injury.

Aho, who leads the Hurricanes in both goals (16) and points (37), could return by the middle of next week or the middle of next month. Such is the nature of being sidelined "indefinitely." But, without their best offensive player, their most dynamic skater, their most dangerous weapon in overtime, it’s a fair bet that the Canes will struggle to keep pace offensively. That not only puts significant pressure on a defense that has struggled to limit high-danger scoring chances, but it also heaps even more of a load on the team’s weakest link to this point: Goaltending.

The Hurricanes’ tandem of Scott Darling and Cam Ward are 21st in the NHL in Goals Against Average (GAA) and 29th in Save Percentage (SV%). Ward has been better than Darling, but that’s more a reflection on how disappointing Darling’s first Carolina season has gone than about how well Ward has played. Make no mistake, Ward has played well far more often than he’s struggled. The Canes are 11-6-2 in his 19 starts, and while his 2.85 (GAA) and .904 (SV%) numbers are significantly below the league average, he’s generally been the more reliable goalie.

Darling has yet to play two really good games in a row. He’s started 26 times, but Carolina has won just nine of those. On top of that, he’s allowed some inexplicably demoralizing goals which have thus far defined his maiden voyage with the Canes. However, his outing in Washington was exceptional as the Hurricanes snagged the first of a home-and-home set with the Capitals. Maybe that’s a sign Darling’s ready to turn his season around after a first half that saw him compile a 2.94 (GAA) and an .895 (SV%), miles worse than in any of his other three NHL seasons.

One thing that has been trending in the right direction is the team’s success rate on special teams. After a dreadful start, Carolina has fought back to 20th on both the power play and penalty kill. The Hurricanes have scored on more than a quarter of their last 34 power plays and have killed off 21 of their last 23 short-handed situations, good enough for 6th and 4th, respectively over the last three-and-a-half weeks.

Another element that appears to be in Carolina’s favor heading to the final 37 games is the schedule. After skating on road ice for three of the first four games after vacation, the Hurricanes will play eight straight and 11 of their next 12 at PNC Arena. The competition also includes many of the teams at the low end of the standings. The Canes have yet to play a single game against the Senators, Red Wings and Flyers. There are two games left against the Islanders and Canadiens and one more with Florida. That’s 15 games remaining against teams outside the top eight in the Eastern Conference.

But guess what …

The schedule only matters if you beat the teams you’re supposed to beat. And, the truth of the matter is that the Hurricanes have yet to demonstrate that they can string a bunch of wins together. Carolina’s longest winning streak is just four, and their high-water mark for consecutive games with at least a point is only 5. It’s likely going to take at least 95 points to squeeze into the playoffs, and if that number holds, the Canes will need to scrounge up 47 points in their final 37 games, something along the lines of a 22-12-3 record.  While that’s not out of the realm of possibility, it will take a lot of improvement over the first 3 1/2 months of the year to pull that off.

Carolina MUST get more consistent scoring from Jeff Skinner, who scored seven goals in this first 10 games, but only seven more in the subsequent 35. Skinner scored 37 goals last year but is currently on a on pace for just 26. The Canes need more production from Elias Lindholm, Victor Rask and Justin Faulk, especially the home captain. Faulk has averaged 16 goals and 41 points per year over the last three seasons but is currently trending towards a 7-goal, 26 point campaign. That would easily be his worst since establishing himself as a lineup regular in Carolina.

The Canes need to make fewer egregious mistakes, like the (still) head-scratching turnover by defenseman Noah Hanifin, who set up Caps forward Brett Connolly right in front of Ward late in a one-goal game. And, they’ll need Ward or Darling or both to simply play a lot better over the next 10 weeks.

The Hurricanes also need tp stay healthy — though, to be fair, they’ve probably had fewer injuries than most teams in the NHL. They need Brett Pesce to return from his injury — suffered at the very end of the morning skate last Thursday in Washington. They need Derek Ryan back in the lineup. And, they desperately need a speedy recovery from Aho. If the latter isn’t going to happen, then General Manager Ron Francis will have to fill his spot with a bonafide scoring threat.

Francis has done a great job restocking the system with talent and speed and size. But he’s yet to pull the trigger on a significant player-for-player trade since replacing Jim Rutherford four years ago. There’s a fine line between being patient and being gun shy.  There’s an argument to be made that the environment here in Raleigh is a bit too comfortable for the players. That, somehow, a sense of entitlement has crept into the dressing room. That comes from the top down.

If Aho is able to return without missing too big of a chunk of the remaining schedule, then there might not be much needed in order to complete this mission. If he can return, and Skinner gets back to his goal-scoring ways, and Justin Williams can sprinkle his big-game magic dust on the rest of the group, and the goaltending improves, they’ll have a chance.

Those are a lot of "ifs." So far, however, we’ve seen too many "buts." And if the Canes are going to finally make the playoffs, it’s time they found the right answers to most of these questions.