As of Saturday night’s 7-1 loss to the Boston Bruins, the Carolina Hurricanes’ 2017-18 regular season schedule is officially halfway over. The team has played 41 games of its 82-game schedule, with another 41 to go. With half the slate wrapped up, now’s a good time to look at where the Canes are, and where they could finish the year.
Coming into the season after signs of growth in 2016-17 and a busy offseason, there was one goal that mattered for Carolina: ending an eight-year playoff drought that is the longest active in the league. Halfway through the season, the Canes are basically on track to do that. At the time of this writing*, Carolina sits one point behind the Pittsburgh Penguins for the second wild card spot in the Eastern Conference. However, given the fact that the Canes have played three less games than Pittsburgh, the Canes are essentially on track to make the postseason based on points percentage.
No doubt, the Canes are in a good spot compared to the last several halfway points due to some improvements in key areas, but could certainly stand to improve on a few more over the season’s second half to give themselves a chance to play more than 82 games this year.
One strong point that has been there for the team for a few years and continued to be this year is a good group of defensemen. The grouping of Justin Faulk, Noah Hanifin, Jaccob Slavin, Brett Pesce, Haydn Fleury, Trevor van Riemsdyk and Klas Dahlbeck have combined to allow the fewest shots on goal against per game in the league at 29, an effort that should be making life easier on their goaltenders (more on that in a bit).
Slavin and Pesce in particular shut down the opponent’s best players on a nightly basis, giving Carolina a strong backbone to fall back on.
Balanced scoring has been a boon for Carolina this year as well. Led up front by Finnish forwards Sebastian Aho and Teuvo Teravainen with 33 points apiece in 41 games, the Canes currently have five players on pace for at least 20 goals: Aho, Teravainen and forwards Jordan Staal, Jeff Skinner and Elias Lindholm. In addition, Aho, Teravainen, Staal, Skinner, Lindholm, forward Justin Williams, forward Derek Ryan and defenseman Noah Hanifin are on pace for at least 40 points.
That kind of balanced contribution makes this lineup dangerous on a nightly basis, and will be even more important as games get tighter down the stretch.
Carolina could stand for a little more offensive output as a whole, however, as the team ranks 21st in the league at 2.73 goals per game. Much of that could come from an improvement on a power play that ranks 25th in the league at 16 percent. As five-on-five scoring gets harder to come by during the stretch run, Carolina will need its power play clicking at a higher level.
Special teams in general need to improve for the Canes to make the playoffs, as the team’s penalty kill currently ranks 24th at 79 percent.
One long-time sore spot the Canes hoped would be fixed this year was goaltending. Acquiring Scott Darling from the Chicago Blackhawks was supposed to fix what had been a trouble spot for years and give the team at least league-average goaltending. It hasn’t.
Carolina’s .897 team save percentage is good for just 25th in the league, and it’s remarkable the team has managed to stay in contention with poor goaltending once again. Darling has been a disappointment thus far, with an 8-11-6 record, .893 save percentage and 2.97 goals-against average on the season.
In fact, Darling’s been outperformed by Cam Ward, who was supposed to be the backup this year but has since reclaimed his old starting job, with an 11-3-2 record, .911 save percentage and 2.63 goals-against average. Carolina will need two goalies going for its playoff push, so Darling’s play will have to improve.
The Canes do have an opportunity to get hot down the stretch. Twenty-three of the team’s remaining 41 games are on home ice, where the team is 10-4-4 this season, including an eight-game homestand in February.
Through 41 games of the 2017-18 season, the Carolina Hurricanes are close to, if not right where they want to be. With an easier schedule and improvements to special teams and goaltending during the back half of the season, there’s no reason the Canes can’t reach the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time since 2009. The opportunity is there.
*This article was published before the Hurricanes’ game against the Tampa Bay Lightning Tuesday night.
