It's a little early to start worrying about hurricane season, but these days it's probably worth paying attention to the team bearing that nickname.
We speak, of course, of the Carolina Hurricanes. Remember them?
Stanley Cup winners in 2006.
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| Erik Cole has two goals and eight assists in 10 games since returning to Carolina via trade. (Getty Images) |
A playoff bubble team at best for most of this one.
The Hurricanes have been easy to overlook since their glory days even if there are eight holdovers from the championship squad still around. But expect that to change if Carolina continues playing the way it has since the trade deadline.
Quietly, and seemingly suddenly, the Hurricanes have become one of the NHL's most explosive teams, and with an 8-1-2 record since the March 3 trade cutoff, they are picking up a lot of steam in the final weeks leading to the playoffs. Carolina isn't there yet, but it has broken out of a five-team pack that was battling for the bottom seeds in the East around the deadline, moving into fifth place after beating Florida in overtime Monday. That was the Hurricanes' fourth win in six nights and it created a little space between them and the cutoff line with nine games to go. "We figured out we needed to play a certain way to win," said forward Eric Staal.
Not that it was much of a secret. Carolina has been noted for its team speed since the lockout, but these days its success has to start with goalie Cam Ward, who won the 2006 playoffs MVP award as a rookie. Ward is arguably playing his best hockey since, turning into an iron man with 22 starts in a row. He earned the league's first star honors last week. But as good as Ward has been, the bigger story may be what's happening at the other end of the ice.
"Goal support," Ward said. "It's nice as a goaltender to have that."
No doubt, especially when it comes in the kind of droves the Hurricanes have produced lately.
With Joe Corvo and Joni Pitkanen, Carolina is better at puck movement from the back end than it was in the Cup season. But with Staal, Ray Whitney, Sergei Samsonov and Rod Brind'Amour up front, the Hurricanes struggled to score much of the season. Since the deadline though, Carolina has been averaging nearly four and a half goals per game, or about two more per game than before. The Hurricanes have come up with a nine-goal game in that stretch, another with six, two fives and three fours, and their offense is coming both on the power play and at even strength.
"Actually I think it's because we're playing a little better defensively," said Whitney, the team's scoring leader. "We're skating, demanding that our forwards back check a little harder and not kind of wait and poach behind their team when we don't have the puck. When we do that, we create more turnovers and with our speed, we get more odd man rushes and we've capitalized."
It adds up to a sea change for Carolina, one that coach Paul Maurice contends had its roots in mid February when the Hurricanes had what he described as a "come to Jesus" moment after suffering embarrassing back-to-back blowout losses at home. Maurice, who replaced Peter Laviolette in December, said it didn't take many subsequent video clips for anyone to figure out the holes and what needed to change.
Something clicked because the Hurricanes started showing signs of life in the immediately aftermath.
The Hurricanes managed 25 goals while going 4-3-1 for the remainder of the month, but things kicked into high gear at the deadline when Carolina re-acquired the fleet Erik Cole from Edmonton. Cole immediately re-joined Staal and Tuomo Ruutu on the first line and the unit has picked up 14 goals and 23 assists, however the real impact of Carolina's major deadline move went deeper into the lineup.
"The addition of Erik Cole has made a big difference to that first line, but you have to look at Ray Whitney and Rod who have been on fire, and Samsonov, too," Maurice said. "With Cole going there, it let us move Sammy down to Brind'Amour's line, which means they are now playing against a third (line) and it's balanced the scoring a little more. Matt Cullen has been a big part of it too, so having Erik has put everybody in their right roles."
It certainly looks that way. The second line of Whitney, Cullen and Chad Larose have scored 12 goals and 24 points since the deadline, while Samsonov and Brind'Amour have seven goals and 10 assists with different wingers on the third line. And the Hurricanes are starting to do things they rarely did the last couple of seasons.
"We're winning some games the ugly way, some the pretty, in all kinds of fashions, so in that way it does remind me of the Cup team," Whitney said. "The whole makeup and style is different now, but this is way things happened when we won."
Consider that a hurricane warning.
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