{"id":538894,"date":"2026-04-03T18:14:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T18:14:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/538894\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T18:14:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T18:14:12","slug":"can-the-hurricanes-finally-overcome-the-playoff-hump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/538894\/","title":{"rendered":"Can the Hurricanes finally overcome the playoff hump?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Congratulations to the Carolina Hurricanes<\/a>, who clinched their eighth consecutive playoff appearance<\/a> with a 5-1 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets<\/a> on Thursday. Rod Brind\u2019Amour\u2019s group has been a model of consistency ever since he took over as head coach ahead of the 2018-19 season, making the postseason and winning at least one playoff series (if we count the qualifying round from the COVID-shortened 2019-20 season) in each year under his direction.<\/p>\n

The problem, however, has come when Carolina gets deeper into the postseason. Despite making the conference finals three times over the past seven season, the Hurricanes have not reached the Stanley Cup Finals in that span. If there was ever a year for the Hurricanes to break through the proverbial ceiling, though, it could be this one. Carolina sits atop an otherwise mediocre Metropolitan Division<\/a>, and should be favorites until at least the Eastern Conference finals.<\/p>\n

On Friday\u2019s episode of\u00a0Daily Faceoff LIVE<\/a>,\u00a0hosts Tyler Yaremchuk and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton discussed whether the Hurricanes are poised to finally make a run to the Stanley Cup finals.<\/p>\n

Tyler\u00a0Yaremchuk:\u00a0What do the \u2018Canes need to do this year to finally get over that final hump? I also think, and I\u2019ll add one more point on, you look at their path through the Metro, that might be the easiest path of any division. Pittsburgh, New York potentially in the second round. They should steamroll one of those two teams.<\/p>\n

Carter\u00a0Hutton:\u00a0I also think, if there was a scale to look at right now, it\u2019s how hot the Columbus Blue Jackets have been, and then they just lost two straight games handily to the Carolina Hurricanes, and last night only generating 10 shots on goal. Freddy Andersen has played in this league a long time, that might be one of the easier games he\u2019s ever going to play in. They come in swarms, they make it hard on you. I thought it was great to see Logan Stankoven getting two last night in different ways. He tips one in and then the other one he goes to the net on a rebound. It wasn\u2019t a typical high-end skill play, getting to those tough areas, which is going to be their nemesis come playoff time because it\u2019s going to tighten up. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a swarming defense that I love watching them play. Brandon Bussi is trending in the right direction, I know he\u2019s been a bit of a question mark post-Olympic break, but he\u2019s played much better as of late. There\u2019s going to be a challenge, and it looks like they can run through the Metro, but can they get over that hump and generate offense.<\/p>\n

You can catch the full discussion and the rest of Friday\u2019s episode here\u2026<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Congratulations to the Carolina Hurricanes, who clinched their eighth consecutive playoff appearance with a 5-1 win over the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":538895,"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-538894","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\/116342139540375794","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538894","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=538894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538894\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/538895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}