{"id":538749,"date":"2026-04-03T16:44:26","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T16:44:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/538749\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T16:44:26","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T16:44:26","slug":"rod-brindamours-defiant-message-after-clinching-playoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/538749\/","title":{"rendered":"Rod Brind&#8217;Amour&#8217;s defiant message after clinching playoffs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/clutchpoints.com\/nhl\/carolina-hurricanes\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Carolina Hurricanes<\/a> became the first Eastern Conference team to clinch their berth in the Stanley Cup Playoffs on Thursday evening. It has been a successful run for Rod Brind&#8217;Amour&#8217;s Hurricanes, but it hasn&#8217;t led to much postseason success. In a <a href=\"https:\/\/clutchpoints.com\/nhl\/carolina-hurricanes\/hurricanes-dream-seeding-matchup-scenarios-2026-nhl-playoffs\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">wide-open conference, Carolina has an intriguing opportunity<\/a> in front of them this year, and their head coach <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/WaltRuff\/status\/2039888253747069257\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">understands that<\/a>, according to Walt Ruff via X, formerly Twitter.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe&#8217;re going to finish out the year hard, get across the finish line the best that we can, and then look forward to an opportunity to win the whole thing,\u201d Brind&#8217;Amour confidently stated after clinching.<\/p>\n<p>The Hurricanes defeated the Columbus Blue Jackets on Thursday, which not only clinched them a playoff spot but was also <a href=\"https:\/\/clutchpoints.com\/nhl\/columbus-blue-jackets\/blue-jackets-news-rick-bowness-preaches-urgency-amid-playoff-push\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">detrimental to the Blue Jackets&#8217; chances<\/a>, as they fell out of a postseason spot with their fifth consecutive loss. The Jackets are now in a three-way tie for the last wild card spot with the Ottawa Senators and Detroit Red Wings.<\/p>\n<p>Carolina had a bit of a lull in their performance, which wasn&#8217;t overly surprising given that they have been dominating the Metropolitan Division for most of the season. However, Brind&#8217;Amour has his team locked in down the home stretch, owning a 7-3-0 record over their last 10 games.<\/p>\n<p>The Hurricanes do have some competition from the Atlantic Division, as both the Buffalo Sabres and Tampa Bay Lightning have 100 points, two behind the Hurricanes. A big part of Rod Brind&#8217;Amour&#8217;s goal of going all the way will be securing home ice through the entire Eastern Conference slate.<\/p>\n<p>The Carolina Hurricanes became the first Eastern Conference team to clinch their berth in the Stanley Cup Playoffs on Thursday evening.  It has been a successful run for Rod Brind&#8217;Amour&#8217;s Hurricanes, but it hasn&#8217;t led to much postseason success.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Carolina Hurricanes became the first Eastern Conference team to clinch their berth in the Stanley Cup Playoffs&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":538750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5107],"tags":[194,29,5176,5,195,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-538749","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-carolina-hurricanes","8":"tag-carolina","9":"tag-carolina-hurricanes","10":"tag-carolinahurricanes","11":"tag-hockey","12":"tag-hurricanes","13":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116341785726364891","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=538749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/538750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}