For a few years, Canes fans have talked about how the team was young and still building. That assessment is accurate, and it is fair to say that will continue. But at the same time, I think people underestimate the Hurricanes ability to win the Stanley Cup as soon as 2021-22. I say this not because the Hurricanes are a favorite or necessarily among the handful of best teams in the NHL. I say this because I think the team has reached the stage where it is good enough to have a chance, and once that level is reached anything is possible.
I wrote about this in a bit more detail earlier this week when I said:
I think some people underestimate how close the Hurricanes are to being in Stanley Cup contention and at the same time overestimate how much closer the team can get by improving and making upgrades. While there are certainly teams that have a significantly higher chance of hoisting the Cup than others, much of winning it is just catching lightning in a bottle, finding and riding a hot goalie at the right time of year or just even playing good not great hockey and catching some well-timed breaks.
2019 Stanley Cup winner St. Louis came from as far back as the Hurricanes just to improbably make the playoffs in 2019 and then rode goalie Jordan Binnington who was not anywhere near the top of the depth chart when the season started to a Cup victory.
The Dallas Stars who are the current favorite to emerge in 2020 have ridden a sudden and mostly inexplainable surge in scoring and a backup goalie to within three wins of shiny silver goodness.
And these past couple years are not anomalies.
I think the most common recipe for winning the Stanley Cup is three basic ingredients.
(1) Be good enough to make the playoffs even if the regular season does not go perfectly.
(2) Have enough high-end talent and balance to be able to compete with good teams for most of a seven-game series without needing minor miracles to win individual games.
(3) Get hot.
Noticeably missing from my list is a requirement to be an elite team, a top 4 team or anything roughly in that category.
In that sense, I think the Hurricanes are in range of being able to win a Stanley Cup right now.
Today’s Daily Cup of Joe builds on this positive team and offer ten positives for the Hurricanes over the long haul.
1) The age of the core
If I had to identify a core of the roster, it would be Jaccob Slavin and Brett Pesce on the blue line (with Dougie Hamilton as an addition if re-signed) and Sebastian Aho, Teuvo Teravainen and Andrei Svechnikov at forward. Those five players make up the top 25 percent of the roster that most determines success or failure for a team. That group of five players averages exactly 24 years old. If the group can continue to make even gradual improvement and stay healthy, the run of time with these players in or near their prime is significant.
2) Favorable contracts
Over the past couple years, the Hurricanes have for the first time in team history joined the ranks of the teams that need to worry about salary cap. When that happens, the challenge becomes making improvements with no budget to do so and also the need to sometimes let good players go to make the math work. The Blackhawks are probably the best example of a great team that was pulled down by the challenges of a salary cap world. The Hurricanes do have a couple net negative contracts near-term if players like Nino Niederreiter and Jake Gardiner cannot play their way back up the depth chart, but longer-term the Hurricanes have some favorable deals on core players. The combination of Jaccob Slavin, Brett Pesce and Teuvo Teravainen make a total of $14.8 million with Slavin signed for five years and Pesce and Teravainen each for four years. With Aho committed for four years and Svechnikov only a restricted free agent next summer, the team has at least four years with this core and mostly favorable contracts.
3) Knowing what it takes
Many good teams take multiple tries to learn what it takes in the playoffs. The Penguins took a few tries before breaking through and winning a Stanley Cup. The Capitals took most of a decade. And most recently the Lightning have overcome a major bump in the road being swept in the first round of the 2019 playoffs before pushing into the finals this season. Despite only two playoff appearances for this group, it has obtained significant experience with three series wins (counting 2020 qualification round) and five series and 23 games total. Only the future knows for sure, but I feel like this team will not fall short in the playoffs because of inexperience or being in over their heads.
4) Rod Brind’Amour
When Brind’Amour was named the head coach, I immediately penned an article entitled, “In Rod we trust.” The theme was not so much a bet that he was a sure thing as an inexperienced coach but rather that he was one of us to the core and worth giving a chance and supporting wholeheartedly. Two years later the decision to put Brind’Amour that role which was far, far from a no-brainer at the time now looks to make perfect sense. Brind’Amour’s leadership and the example he sets are at core of the team and how it plays, and I think his experience as a player will continue to be valuable helping young players develop and making the ‘work’ environment one that requires all in commitment but not in a way that makes it miserable. I also think his greatest contribution could be yet to come helping the team and leadership navigate the ups and downs of the last couple rounds of the playoffs on the way to winning the Stanley Cup.
5) Reinforcements
Despite having graduated a good number of young players to the NHL, the Hurricanes are still ranked favorably by experts in terms of its prospect pool. I actually think there is a bit of a gap right now with most of the NHL-ready (or at least deserving a chance) players already at the NHL and the next wave mostly two to four years out. My hope ist timing is right to have a couple more players ready to step into the lineup right when the salary cap pressures necessitate finding depth and improvement from within in the form of rising young players on entry-level contracts.
What say you Canes fans?
1) Do you buy my assertion that the Hurricanes Stanley Cup window is officially open even if they are maybe not (yet) one of top couple teams who would be considered a favorite?
2) Which of the five positives for the long haul is most significant for chasing the Stanley Cup?
3) What other positives would you add for the long haul?
Go Canes!
1) The Canes are entering their window. The one concern I have is that they over-extended with acquisitions. Nashville and Ottawa (even San Jose to some extent) should be examples of what doesn’t work when a team makes the conference or Cup final. Even though Carolina made the ECF in ’19, the window was not yet fully open this past season. If not for injuries, Geekie and Ned would not have received time in Raleigh. It would have been much better to give them and Bean some experience, including in the playoffs. That would pay off for the four-season window you indicate.
2) 1 and 2 are equally important and related. All the key pieces will be in their hockey primes for the next 4-8 years and the salary structure won’t cause major losses.
3) Necas can become part of the core. I am not usually a fan of player comparisons based solely on nationality. That said, Necas is a Czech-born player selected in the 10-20 range as were Hertl and Vrana. Both those players have seen dramatic increases in their scoring as they became more experienced in the NHL. If Necas becomes a 25/65 player on a regular basis, the Canes will be in excellent shape.
1) the window is open. Capturing lightning in a bottle is the key. The objective of parity in the salary cap era is largely met. As an example, over the last 4 years, the Eastern Conference representatives in the Stanley Cup are PIT, WAS, BOS, and TBL. 4 teams in 4 years, and it looks like 3 will win.
This fact makes question 2 difficult to answer.
2) my first thought was that the favorable contracts were the biggest key, yet teams with unfavorable contracts can win the cup. Thinking beyond the numbers, what is the key to capturing lightning in a bottle?
The answer isn’t so simple. However since the team has Tulsky they can probably build a probabilistic model and get it close to right.
As a guess, perhaps Leadership – guys like RBA and Justin Williams, are the key. Rod Beind’Amour Is my final answer, at least for today.
3) the pipeline. Not to “make the team” but rather to be a difference maker and make it to the core. CT called out Necas. There is a sufficient quantity of skilled guys behind him that one of them may advance to the core.
1. I agree because, in part, once you make the playoffs you can make the run. And this team can be a regular playoff team and has a style that is tough to play against, even against Boston.
2. 1 is the most important – we have young players still reaching their peak (Aho is not there yet) nd some of them will be extremely (Svech, maybe Necas). I think 2 is important but…it is balanced by those awful mid-level contracts to underperforming players (Gardiner, Nino, hopefully not Trocheck and Skjei – but the jury is out)that have term. They will tie our hands and are untradeable except for salary dumps.
3. We have a couple of high-end players (Bokk and Suzuki, maybe sellgren) in the pipeline who could be NHL stars. I am not as big a fan of the rest of our prospects as being difference makers at the NHL level.
One other big positive – the fan base.
Well put.
1. Yeah, with these core players, we could do it. It depends on the support cast (with this particular support cast, not quite).
2. The age and contracts of the core players are the key. They’re coming into their prime and probably have some of the most team friendly contracts in the sport (depending how Svech/Hamilton pan out).
The mid-level contracts are pretty bad. Also I suspect that TD will put the breaks on the spending, internal budget could start playing a larger role.
3. The fans are pretty unique. Tampa Bay won the cup the year before the Canes, it looks like they’ll win again this year. Next year is our turn, the Stars foretell (unless, of course, the Stars come all the way back to beat the Lightning).