Quiet consistency has Hurricanes positioned for playoff run

The way things have gone this season, there are a lot of places to put your Eastern Conference attention other than the Carolina Hurricanes. But while more ink has been spilled over other teams — good and bad — the Canes have quietly clipped along, positioning themselves to make the playoff run that would validate years of regular-season excellence.

The Hurricanes having basically locked up the Metropolitan Division title simply doesn’t qualify as big news in a conference where Buffalo and Columbus have been shockingly good for months now, while previous playoff fixtures like Florida and Toronto have fallen off the map. 

There’s been so much flip-flopping in terms of who’s up and down in the East that it feels as though we’ve barely touched on the defending Metro champs from Washington being poised to miss the second season one year after a 111-point campaign.

It’s certainly hard to get worked up about a Carolina club that, after getting an overtime win in Toronto on Friday and a resounding 5-1 W in Pittsburgh on Sunday, is going to open the playoffs with home-ice advantage for the sixth straight season.

Of course, the problem in Raleigh is that — despite competing in 89 playoff games since 2019, more than every team save Dallas and Tampa Bay — the Hurricanes have failed to make the Stanley Cup Final in that time.

Can they change that fact in a few months?

The Hurricanes, winners of three straight games and owners of a 21-5-3 mark in their past 29 outings, have the third-best points percentage in the NHL at .686. and possesses very strong underlying numbers in terms of expected goals for percentage (56.34 per cent on Moneypuck, second-best behind only Colorado). 

Both of those facts are in line with what we’ve seen from previous iterations of the Canes.

What could be changing, though, is how balanced and potent the Carolina attack is. The top line of Sebastian Aho between Seth Jarvis and Andrei Svechnikov has the seventh-most goals of any trio in the NHL that has played at least 300 minutes together, and the second line of Logan Stankoven between Taylor Hall and Jackson Blake is right behind them at No. 9.

That’s fantastic top-six balance, helping the Canes rank fourth in the NHL with 3.50 goals per game and third in the league since the calendar flipped to 2026 with 3.84.

Granted, Carolina has shown it can score during the regular season in past campaigns, while always coming up a goal or two short in the post-season. The hope this year, though, must be that — even though there’s still not a true game-breaker on this club — the score-by-committee approach that’s failed before can succeed now with an uptick in dangerous board members.

Nikolaj Ehers, the team’s big UFA signing last summer, had 1-1-2 in the victory over Pittsburgh and is up to 34 points in his past 33 outings. 

Right now, Ehlers is a third-liner in Carolina.

The top unit of Aho, Jarvis and Svechnikov are all point-per-game players in the second half of the season, which is an uptick from past campaigns for everyone in that group except Aho. And when you’re getting what Carolina is behind the first line, it sure seems like there’s a path to enough scoring no matter what time of year it is. 

Everything in Carolina that can be quantified is thanks to an analytically driven management group headed by general manager Eric Tulsky. If we slide into the realm of less tangible considerations, though, you do wonder if a quiet consistency this year has helped the Canes one season after Tulsky made a huge swing to get Mikko Rantanen from Colorado and wound up being forced to deal him away to Dallas at the 2025 deadline when it became clear he wasn’t ready to ink long-term in Carolina.

That’s a lot of upheaval to endure, even for the steadiest of organizations. 

Hall and Stankoven — two-thirds of that strong second line — are both enjoying just their first full season in Carolina and you have to wonder if the 23-year-old Stankoven, in particular, is finally feeling comfortable and confident as an NHLer after being part of the Rantanen return last spring. All of the Hurricanes’ monster moves — signing Ehlers and trading for defenceman K’Andre Miller — came in the off-season this time out, giving everyone a full training camp and regular-season runup to find their place ahead of the playoffs.

While goaltending remains a question mark — the tandem of Brandon Bussi and Frederik Andersen has provided the 23rd-ranked team save percentage in the second half at .881 — the Canes are deep and dangerous.

Maybe their time to hog the headlines is still on the horizon. 

Weekend Takeaways

• Nikita Kucherov’s scoring exploits are worthy of all the praise he gets, as the Bolts’ madman netted five more points in two weekend outings to give him 28 points in 14 games since NHL play resumed after the Olympic break. If there’s one player breathing the same air as Kucherov since the hiatus, though, it’s Martin Necas. The Avs winger also had himself a five-point weekend, going 1-2-3 during a 4-1 win in Chicago on Friday and snagging two apples — including one on the OT winner by Brock Nelson — during Sunday’s 3-2 victory in Washington. Those numbers pump Necas to 10 goals and 24 points in 14 games since he returned from representing Czechia in Italy.

Nobody is completely on Kucherov’s level right now, but Necas — who was already having a great season — is certainly levelling up down the stretch. 

• We just want to join the chorus of people in and around hockey extending deepest sympathies to the friends and family of Minnesota-based NHL.com writer Jessi Pierce, who — along with her three children — lost her life in unimaginable fashion on the weekend.

Red and White Power Rankings

1. Montreal Canadiens (38-21-10) Juraj Slafkovsky, who turns 22 in one week, is three goals away from his first 30-goal season after bagging a pair in a critical 7-3 win over the Islanders in Montreal on Saturday. The Canadiens’ top line of Nick Suzuki between Slafkovsky and Cole Caufield — whose 43 goals are just two back of Nathan MacKinnon for the NHL lead — has been a menace of late, as the Habs push to try and pin down a playoff spot. 

2. Ottawa Senators (36-24-9) Four of Ottawa’s next five contests are on the road to close out March. If the Sens can manage a good showing through those games, they’ll be in position for a big final post-season push, closing out the schedule with six of eight at home. 

3. Edmonton Oilers (34-28-9) After losing to the Tampa Bay Lightning 5-2 on Saturday night, the Oilers are done facing the Eastern Conference for the rest of the regular season. Critically, the Oilers have two more games left with the Vegas Golden Knights as the turtle race for prime spots of the Pacific Division continues. 

4. Winnipeg Jets (29-29-12) A shootout win on Sunday afternoon in Manhattan followed a shootout defeat 24 hours earlier in Pittsburgh. The Jets’ playoff hopes are hanging by a thread, but — with five points between them and WC2 holder, Nashville — the Manitoba crew is at least still in the frame. 

5. Toronto Maple Leafs (29-29-13) Easton Cowan factored into both Leafs goals during Saturday’s loss in Ottawa with a 1-1-2 showing. It’s been a tough year all around in Toronto and while Cowan’s certainly had the ups and downs you’d expect for a rookie, he’s undeniably shown flashes of the player the Buds hope he can be. 

6. Calgary Flames (29-34-7) Ryan Strome scored the OT winner on Sunday night versus Tampa, netting his second goal in nine games with Calgary. The former Ducks centre had just three goals in 33 contests with Anaheim this season. 

7. Vancouver Canucks (21-40-8) With the lone Canucks goal in a 3-1 loss to the Blues on Saturday, defenceman Filip Hronek collected his 39th point of the year to put him just two back of centre Elias Pettersson for the team lead. You know things are grim when…

The Week Ahead

• It’s big week for milestones, with Kraken defenceman Adam Larsson and Rangers centre Mika Zibanejad both slated to skate in their 1,000th career games. Paul Maurice, meanwhile, is on tap to become just the second NHL coach to hit the 2,000-game mark, leaving him 141 shy of tying Scotty Bowman for the all-time record. 

• Macklin Celebrini is four points shy of becoming the sixth teenager in league history to record a 100-point season. The Sharks play three road games this week beginning Tuesday in Nashville. That same night, Matthew Schaefer — who scored his 22nd goal of the season in Montreal on Saturday — can tie the rookie record for goals by a defenceman when the Islanders host Chicago. Brian Leetch put up 23 with the New York Rangers in 1988-89.

• Connor McDavid is one goal shy of 400 for his career and two back of registering his fifth 40-goal campaign. His first shot at both milestones comes Tuesday in Utah, when current Art Ross leader Nikita Kucherov — sitting on 397 career tallies — will also have 400 on his radar as Tampa hosts Minnesota. 

• The week’s second 15-game slate is set to pop off on Saturday. Pacific-leading Anaheim visits Edmonton in a big clash, the Jets have their work cut out for them with an all-Central battle against the Avs in Denver, and the Basement Bowl — all-Canadian version — goes off in Calgary when the Canucks come to town for a duel between two of the NHL’s worst clubs.