Right now, I think the Carolina Hurricanes are in the middle of the stretch of hockey that will ultimately decide their season.
Will the Canes carry forward from December and at least play games that matter in March?
Or will the team fade under a brutal January schedule and enter the group of trade deadline sellers and draft lottery hopefuls by the front part of March?
After a slow start and a few unsuccessful attempts to build any consistent momentum and rhythm, the Canes finally seemed to figure it out in December. The team finished the month with a solid 8-5-1 record including statement wins against the Washington Capitals and the Chicago Blackhawks.
In January, the Canes are off to a ‘treading water’ 1-1-2 start and in the middle of a brutal stretch of schedule. It kicked off with a long flight out west to play 2 quick games and then a return home with only the minimum single travel day. After a quick game and laundry swap the Canes finish the week in Columbus on Saturday.
The schedule does not get any easier when the Canes play another busy 4-game week next week with flights here there and everywhere. Starting with the Edmonton game on January 4 and concluding with the New York Rangers game on January 22, the team will play 10 consecutive games with travel before each. There are a couple home games sprinkled in but with only 1 at a time even those will be almost like road/travel games.
Because of the fact that the Canes have played themselves nearly to the edge of the pack of teams at the middle of the Eastern conference and the fact, the arduous schedule noted above and the fact that the season is ticking away now on the back half of the NHL schedule, I think the stretch of games leading up to the NHL all-star game on January 31 will decide the Hurricanes season. The objective is not too miraculously play their way into a playoff spot in that time. And I do not mean to say that a strong January finish assures a magical result. What it does is make a real strong statement that the team is headed in the right direction. Much stronger than ‘the kids can play in the NHL’ (and lose a bunch of games) is ‘the kids can win at the NHL level.’ A decent finish to January would also see the team playing games that matter much later into the season than in recent years. That in itself is success.
So the objective for the rest of January would simply be to continue treading water and not falling any farther from the pack that is currently ahead of them. If the team can emerge from January still where it is now standings-wise or ideally a point or 2 better, the stage is set for a push during a home-heavy February schedule. If not, the trade deadline and soon after draft lottery positioning will quickly become the primary topic of Canes discussion.
In this context, I think Friday’s win against a struggling Columbus team that could easily be minimized was bigger than most think. With the travel challenges, minus Victor Rask and already minus 1 at 0-1-1 for the week, this win digs the team’s heels in before sliding too far. It is the first win in January and gets the team back to break even for a tough week with a chance to be plus 1 in the win column if they can repeat tomorrow. It also pushes the team 1 game closer to the break it needs at the end of the month and without giving up ground in the standings to get there.
Go Canes!
