In stretch against also-rans, Hurricanes haven’t just maintained their edge. They’ve honed it.
It has now been three weeks since the Carolina Hurricanes last lost in regulation, and while they have benefited from a mild drop in the quality of competition, they have responded to that with an increase in quality of their own.
As the end of the regular season fast approaches, the Hurricanes continue to get better.
Getting players like Teuvo Teravainen and Brady Skjei back certainly helps, but there’s more than personnel to the kind of overflowing confidence the Hurricanes displayed in Monday’s 5-2 win over the Chicago Blackhawks. They passed repeatedly into open space knowing a teammate would quickly fill it, deftly doubled back to defuse threats at the other end and over and over again made the kind of subtle plays that belie the tremendous trust inherent in them.
“It’s all about sharpening up,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “We’ve got to find a way to stay razor sharp and keep getting better.”
When it’s going your way, it’s all going your way. Sebastian Aho was hooked and dropped his stick at one end, with no call, then was the recipient of an Andrei Svechnikov pass to finish a two-on-one on the very next rush, his first of three. Dougie Hamilton took a shot from deep in the corner behind the Chicago net, and banked it off the goalie and in. Real puck-don’t-lie stuff.
Of course, it also helps that this is the kind of Blackhawks team that would look familiar to Alpo Suhonen, Trent Yawney, Brian Sutter and Lorne Molleken, all of whom oversaw dismal Blackhawks teams in the post-Chelios/Roenick-pre-Kane/Toews intermission, a period when the Blackhawks made the playoffs once in 10 years and weren’t even a gleam in NBC’s eye yet.
There’s still something to be said for putting a team playing out the string out of its misery quickly rather than giving it a reason to hang around and make a nuisance of itself, and the Hurricanes made quick work of that Monday. It was 2-0 at the end of the first — easily could have been 4-0 — and was 4-0 midway through the second. Game over at that point, although the Blackhawks tacked on a pair late as the Hurricanes coasted in third gear before Aho clinched the hat trick with an empty-netter.
“We just tried to go into this game and play our game,” said Martin Necas, who scored his first goal since April 10. “Be strong on the puck, play in the offensive zone, if there was a play just make it, or try to skate it in there as well. It was a good start. ... We want to win every game. It’s been pretty good so far. Right now it’s the time of year when you have to be dialed in and be ready for the playoffs.”
The first two goals both had a tinge of luck to them and more than a tinge of misfortune on the part of Chicago goalie Malcolm Subban, but the Hurricanes more than earned them. Hamilton banked the first off Subban’s skate from deep below the goal line and Necas’ long shot hit the post and then Subban twice for the Hurricanes’ second.
Aho tacked on a pair in the first half of the second period to chase Subban, but goaltending wasn’t the Blackhawks’ issue. On this night, they were utterly unequipped to keep up with a far better hockey team playing with verve and style.
The Hurricanes certainly still have everything to play for at this point, despite having a playoff spot safely secured. It’s not just positioning, even though first place in this division means potentially only having to play one of Tampa Bay and Florida instead of both, no small consideration given the quality of those teams.
It’s less concrete than that. A game like this, a performance like this, even against an outmanned opponent that’s ready for the end of a chronologically short but emotionally long season, requires the same rigid focus and lack of mercy required to complete a sweep or take care of business at home in the first two games of a first-round series.
“That’s the whole name of the game right now,” Brind’Amour said. “It’s human nature. It would be easy to let off the gas. You push so hard to get into the playoffs and you get in, but we have to keep getting better. When we get to playoffs, we can’t have bad habits and things creep into our game. I give the guys a lot of credit. The last three games haven’t been picture perfect, but we haven’t come off the gas at all.”
The Hurricanes have been building something, all season long, but over the past four weeks or so in particular as they round into health and start to get players back from injury. They’re in a run of seven straight games against teams that aren’t going to make the playoffs — whether that’s Dallas at the start of it or Nashville at the end of it — and they haven’t just maintained their edge, but honed it.
This story was originally published May 3, 2021 at 9:36 PM with the headline "In stretch against also-rans, Hurricanes haven’t just maintained their edge. They’ve honed it.."
