Are The Carolina Hurricanes Finally Done With Trading For Rentals?

Since the Carolina Hurricanes have entered their six-year stretch of consecutive playoff berths, advancing at least one round in each of those appearances, they have had the same team identity.

That team identity worked in unison with head coach Rod Brind’Amour, who got his spot behind the bench ahead of their playoff streak.

The two-time Selke winner in his playing career has proven the ability to coach defense into the roster, as on average the Hurricanes have averaged 36.6 goals against less than the league average per season. Since 2020, the team has never fallen lower than fourth-best in the NHL at this metric.

While the offense has not been the team’s calling card in the Brind-Amour era, the Hurricanes very rarely struggle to put the puck in the back of the net. Instead, Carolina seems to run into the opposite issue of most of the league’s best teams, too much depth.

The issue is not regarding the depth itself, but the team’s lack of a dominant top-line pairing to consistently produce five-on-five offense.

Despite being amongst the best teams in the NHL, the Hurricanes have not had a 40-goal scorer nor a 90-point player since 2018.

While depth scoring is undeniably valuable in the postseason, there is a reliance required on the team’s best weapons to be able to take over a game, or even a series, in which we have not seen from the current core.

Forwards like Sebastian Aho, Andrei Svechnikov and Martin Necas have been amongst the franchise’s top producers in the past six years, yet Aho is the only player to maintain a point-per-game pace come the postseason.