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After dropping four of their last five games, the Carolina Hurricanes' season is beginning to spiral. Coming off three straight division titles and an offseason where the team seemed to get even better on paper, Carolina currently ranks 10th in the Eastern Conference in points percentage.
Not all the losses over the recent stretch have come the same way: from losing goaltending battles, to blown leads, to just outright blowout losses, the Hurricanes haven’t been able to find much consistency in their game.
The last two games have been an especially poor stretch. While you can point to good efforts against the the New York Islanders and Winnipeg Jets, the Alberta back-to-back saw an awful 6-1 loss against the Edmonton Oilers, followed by a third period collapse against the Calgary Flames.
Scoring has slowed down significantly, and over their current three-game losing skid, the Hurricanes have managed just four goals. Following a start to the year where it seemed like almost every forward on the team was putting up better numbers than anticipated, nearly all of those players have seen a drop-off, and the lines continue to get adjusted in search of a solution.
After coming out of the gate flying, Jesperi Kotkaniemi has managed just two points over his last 12 games. Teuvo Teravainen has also registered points in just one of the team’s last five games, while Michael Bunting has a single goal in his last four games. Seth Jarvis has also slowed down in a huge way as well, with one assist over the last five games, while Sebastian Aho doesn't have a point over the three-game skid.
Martin Necas has been inconsistent as well. Coming off a breakout year, his numbers have still been alright this season, but he isn’t providing the same game-to-game impact he did last year, and recently spent time on the fourth line. It also looks like Andrei Svechnikov could be unavailable again tonight with an upper-body injury, after just one goal in 16 games since initially returning.
The Martinook-Staal-Fast line remains consistent for the team in being able to outplay opponents when on the ice together, but really haven’t managed to turn that into results. Jordan Martinook has yet to score a goal this season, while Jesper Fast has five points in 26 games.
The Hurricanes have also faced significant goaltending concerns.
A past lowlight came a few weeks ago in an 8-2 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning, where Antti Raanta allowed eight goals on 14 shots. Things haven’t really gotten much better there though, with the team frequently struggling to get even decent goaltending.
Against the Islanders at the end of November, Carolina outshot New York by a massive 43-16 margin. However, Pyotr Kochetkov allowed five goals on those 16 shots, including some tough ones, and the Hurricanes fell in overtime.
Then after a bit of a recovery performance from Kochetkov in a 6-2 win over the Buffalo Sabres, the Hurricanes ended up falling 2-1 to the Winnipeg Jets. Against the Jets, the Hurricanes outshot Winnipeg 43-22, and while it’s hard to fault Raanta for giving up two goals in a loss, the reality is the goaltending matchup massively favoured the Jets.
So in a three-game stretch where the Hurricanes outshot opponents 123-60, they ended up with a 1-2-0 record.
Then in the Alberta back-to-back, Pyotr Kochetkov was pulled less than six minutes into the game against the Edmonton Oilers, allowing three goals on six shots. Kochetkov took the net again the following night against the Calgary Flames, though it was a bit of a bounce-back for him, not getting much help from the team at all.
Looking at the losses over the last stretch though, even if a lot of the time the goals being given up aren’t necessarily stinkers, the Hurricanes are rarely winning goaltending battles. Sometimes, the Hurricanes just need a save, and they usually aren’t getting it. It’s getting to a point where a move almost seems necessary.
Adding a goalie would’ve seemed almost unfathomable coming into the year with not two, but three capable goalies at the team’s disposal. But with Frederik Andersen out, Raanta and Kochetkov haven’t been able to carry the load. As of now, Kochetkov holds an .873 save percentage, while Raanta's is at .863 – these are the two worst save percentages of the 48 NHL goaltenders who have played at least 10 games this season.
Defensively though, the Hurricanes have still been far from the team we’ve come to know. While some games the team can still put together pretty well-rounded defensive outings, a lot of players aren’t contributing as expected, and the results are inconsistent. Notably, Jaccob Slavin and Brett Pesce have looked off throughout parts of the season with uncharacteristic mistakes, while Brent Burns isn’t adding the offense he needs to, in order to offset defensive shortcomings.
It’s a full team issue, though. The Hurricanes have benefitted from huge defensive buy-in from their forward group in previous years and at times, it just hasn’t been there either.
It seems like this is probably the most adversity this team has faced over the last few years. Rod Brind’Amour has been vocal about the team’s play, with quotes like “I’ve never seen our team play this brutal” and noting the team has players “not pulling their weight.”
The consistency and intensity that has defined the team’s identity during the Brind’Amour era just isn’t present. After a poor start to the year, it looked like the team had possibly figured things out to an extent, before being derailed once again by the current stretch.
With a lot of things not going right, the team has three more games on their winless road trip, to try and build a bit of momentum. They’ll be back in action tonight, when they face the Vancouver Canucks, as they continue to search for answers.
Carolina Hurricanes Blogger • 
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