After dominating the New York Rangers in the qualifying round, the Carolina Hurricanes look poised to be a competitive playoff team in the East. Unfortunately, things didn’t go their way and they were eliminated in five games by the Boston Bruins. So after a bit of time to think, what went wrong for the Hurricanes?
THEY'RE STILL LACKING A TOP-SIX FORWARD
I’ve been very vocal about the fact that Carolina needs another top-six winger but I think that became even more obvious in the playoffs. There was a rotation of players joining the second line at different points and the likes of Ryan Dzingel and Nino Niederreiter just couldn’t cut it. Considering Carolina’s forwards only scored 17 goals in eight playoff games and the top line contributed 10 of those goals, another scoring winger to play with Martin Necas and Vincent Trocheck could really help this team.
INJURY TROUBLE
I thought that with Carolina’s depth on defense, they may have been able to fill the void of Brett Pesce. Unfortunately, it didn’t work like that and Sami Vatanen was nowhere near as reliable in his own end as Pesce would’ve been. Then Joel Edmundson and Andrei Svechnikov were both ruled as unfit to play as well and as the injuries started to pile up, the lineup got thinner and thinner.
THEY FACED A STRONG OPPONENT
If the Hurricanes had been up against either Philadelphia or Washington, I think they may have had a much better chance at getting out of the first round. After being a win away from a Stanley Cup last year, the Bruins were a force again this season. Boston has a good chance of making another deep playoff run this year and Carolina simply wasn’t as strong.
THE THIRD PERIOD OF GAME 4
This may be pretty specific but it was a turning point for the series. If the Hurricanes could’ve kept their lead and evened up the series in Game 4, things may have gone differently. Instead, they took the period off and let the Bruins back in the game and coming back from 3-1 down in a series against Boston is rarely going to go your way.
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Here’s today’s poll question (results and discussion will be posted in a future article):
How big of a role did injuries play in the Hurricanes losing to the Bruins?
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