Missing the playoffs is not easy for any NHL player. It means packing up for a long summer and going your separate ways from your teammates early, and forgoing a chance to play for hockey’s ultimate prize in the Stanley Cup.
Members of the Carolina Hurricanes know that painful feeling all too well. The team failed to qualify for the 2018 postseason and extended the league’s longest-active playoff drought to nine years. Several players have been there for three or more years of the drought, and one (goalie Cam Ward) who has been there for all of them. However, that disappointment perhaps cuts the deepest for one of the players who has only experienced this most recent season of the drought.
“It sucks,” forward Justin Williams said at Monday’s exit interviews. “It’s a disappointment. It’s a complete disappointment, this season. Standing here right now and watching the ice get melted and scooped up, it hurts. It stinks. The fun time of year is now and we’re not a part of it.”
The Hurricanes, after all, brought Williams back in part for his playoff prowess. As a player who has won the Stanley Cup three times, including with the Hurricanes in 2006, Williams’ role was to add offense and leadership to a young group. He did that, chipping in 16 goals and 51 points this season and by all accounts being a leader in the room.
That playoff prowess was a big part of the decision to bring him back as well. Throughout his decorated postseason career, including winning the Conn Smythe Trophy as the playoff MVP with the Los Angeles Kings in 2014, Williams has learned what it takes to win. He has earned the moniker “Mr. Game Seven,” as he is tied for the all-time lead in goals in series-deciding games with seven, including the cup-clinching, empty-net tally for the Hurricanes in 2006. It is that past postseason success and knowledge of how much fun the playoffs are that makes this season such a bitter disappointment for Williams.
“I know that once you make the playoffs and you get a taste, and you get that winning attitude with your teammates, the players that you battled all year long,” Williams said. “And then when you have that taken away, it’s different than not having to feel it in the first place. It certainly hurts a lot more. Especially me, on the back end of my career. At my age, not playing playoffs, it’s what I strive for now. It’s not individual statistics; it’s not anything except team success and I want to have success here.”
Williams hopes that the rest of his teammates feel that disappointment as deeply as he does, and that they will come back with the same drive he has to refuse to lose.
“We clearly didn’t rise to the occasion when other teams did,” Williams said. “To watch playoff hockey right now, or upcoming in the next couple days, it’s going to sting. It’s going to hurt. And I hope it hurts for everybody. But I think probably the same old story’s been going on a long time here. People are fed up with it. This is my first year back here and I don’t accept it.”
And Williams definitely brought that drive back to Carolina with him in his second tour of duty. Despite the many in-game collapses and extended losing streaks that ultimately derailed a promising season for the Hurricanes, Williams remained a voice in the locker room to try to drag his teammates back onto the right track.
“What didn’t he bring back to this room,” said Ward, the only other remaining member of the 2006 Championship team. “Thank God we had him. There’s times when things weren’t going well, and he’s the one guy that will step up and say something and try to make a difference. You respect a guy like that.”
His long NHL career has also taught Williams what comes with repeated failure for a team: changes. While the number of those for Carolina remains to be seen, Williams knows he will almost certainly see some faces depart and some new ones come in throughout the long offseason.
“Regardless of the changes, you only stay together if you win together,” Williams said. “This team hasn’t won. We haven’t won. We didn’t win. There’s going to be changes. As far as how many, that’s not up for me to decide, but I don’t think you can keep being unsuccessful in your goals and have the same things happen. So I’d imagine things will be a little different.”
Despite the likelihood of a big shakeup and the knowledge that he could be part of it, Williams has no desire to abandon ship with a year left on his contract. One of two remaining players who has seen the ultimate glory days of hockey in Raleigh wants to stay on and be a part of the solution, to help return the Hurricanes to the promised land.
“I’m very partial to this city and this area because I’ve seen it in good times,” Williams said. “And when you see an old friend fall on hard times, you want to help them out, and you want to be there when it gets good again. This team, I’ve seen the good and I’ve seen the bad. This area deserves to get that winning hockey team again and I want to be a part of that.”
Hurricanes right wing Justin Williams fights Habs goalie Carey Price for the puck in the second period at PNC Arena on Wednesday, Dec. 27 for a 3-1 Canes win. The Canes have now recorded five straight home wins, the longest such streak of the season.
