For the Carolina Hurricanes, a decade of heartbreak ended Thursday night at PNC Arena. A decade of near misses, whiffed opportunities and untapped potential comes to an end as the storybook that’s been the 2018-19 season will include a long-elusive goal for the Canes: their first playoff berth since the 2008-09 season.
In the first season as head coach for Rod Brind’Amour, who captained the 2006 Stanley Cup Championship team and played on the 2009 team, the Canes snapped the league’s longest active playoff drought at nine seasons. The team made it official with a 3-1 win over the New Jersey Devils in the Canes’ final home game of the season, coupled with a loss by the Montreal Canadiens.
“It’s definitely fulfilling,” said team captain Justin Williams, who wore a letter on the front of his jersey for the first time in his career this season. “It’s always fulfilling when you put everything that you have into something and you reach the first goal that you wanted to get to. Obviously, it’s been a long time for this area. It’s been a long time coming for a lot of guys on this team and we’re happy to be invited to the dance this year.”
The Canes have ridden contributions up and down the lineup, from the offensive prowess of Finnish forwards Sebastian Aho and Teuvo Teravainen, the larcenous trade with Minnesota for Nino Niederreiter, a promising debut season for rookie forward Andrei Svechnikov, the steady goaltending of Petr Mrazek and Curtis McElhinney, a deep blue line, Williams’ leadership on and off the ice and everyone else in the group this year.
Thanks to that balanced effort, Carolina will play its first playoff games since being swept by the Pittsburgh Penguins in the 2009 Eastern Conference Finals.
“We put everything we have into this,” Williams said. “Obviously that’s what you should do. Guys have done everything that’s been asked of them. From the top, all the way to the bottom. That’s what a team is. Everybody has their role and everybody’s pulling it together.”
Around the season’s halfway point, it looked like another lost season. The Canes sat at 15-17-5 and were 13th in the Eastern Conference on Dec. 31.
The team proceeded to rip off a 29-12-2 record after the calendar flipped to 2019, finding a way at every turn to get to this point.
“You’ve got to enjoy some of it,” Brind’Amour said. “I know that. I know from playing. I don’t know if I took enough time to enjoy all the moments that were special. You work so hard day in and day out. We grinded these guys, I mean we put the hammer down after game 25 and we were like, ‘We’re in playoff mode we’ve got to figure this out.’ We just pushed and pushed and every night, you watched us, but the effort was amazing. That’s hard to do in this league and again I just give credit to all the guys in the room.”
As the end of the season, and opportunities to clinch, drew near, the Canes had to keep their foot on the gas pedal and win “must-win game” after “must-win game”.
“It’s felt like every game the past month has been win or go home,” Williams said. “That’s what it’s really felt like. It’s probably a little bit more stressful than playing a playoff serious because playoff series they’ve got to win four. You feel like every one was so important and obviously it was. We pushed ourselves as hard as we can and now we can have another game, recharge and try to make some damage.”
The playoff clinch is a moment that means so much to everyone in the Canes’ organization from Brind’Amour and Williams in their first seasons in their respective roles, to the group of players that ranges from young guns to veterans such as defenseman Justin Faulk who have never seen a playoff game, to the front office.
Another group that gets to celebrate is the fans that been through so much disappointment since 2009. As the final minutes counted down Thursday night, chants of “we want playoffs” rained down from the crowd of 17,645, and those fans got to rejoice as the final horn sounded.
“It’s gratifying for the organization,” Brind’Amour said. “It’s gratifying for everyone that has been here for a long time and grinded it out. The fans, that is what is usually forgotten here. These people stuck with us for a long time, and you saw the building. How electric it was. This place is awesome when we are winning. Even when we weren’t, but you go nine years and nobody wants to come watch that, I get it. Now, all the changes we made have been positive, and it’s electric around here. The town, they deserve to have a team like this that they can be proud of. At the end of the day you have to be proud of this group, there’s no way around it.”
The work is obviously not done from here, as making the playoffs was not the only goal for the Canes this year. They want to get in and do some damage. Step one is taken care of, and they can make step two easier by winning their last game of the season in Philadelphia Saturday. Winning that game will guarantee that the team finishes in at least the first wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference, and coupling a win with a Pittsburgh Penguins loss could vault the Canes into third place in the Metropolitan Division.
After that, playoff hockey returns to Raleigh. There are several players in the Canes’ locker room who have never been part of a playoff game. Williams isn’t one of them, and he knows what kind of experience this group has earned for itself.
“There’s nothing like playoff hockey,” Williams said. “I don’t care what you tell me about any other sport. There’s nothing like playoff hockey. Playing it, watching it, the experience. It’s just ratcheted up a little bit, actually a lot. When your backs are against the wall, you try and see what you’re made of. It’s a fun time of year and I’m happy we’ll be playing in it.”
