Hurricanes' season over

Canes become first team to miss playoffs two straight years after winning Cup

RALEIGH -- Their destiny controlled by others, their fate decided elsewhere, the Carolina Hurricanes fell out of the playoff hunt on the only day that matters, claiming a dubious place in NHL history in the process.

The Washington Capitals eliminated the Hurricanes on Saturday with a 3-1 win over the Florida Panthers, claiming the Southeast Division title and knocking the Canes out of the playoffs.

The Canes could have taken the division with a win over the Capitals on Tuesday or the Panthers on Friday. Instead, they lost both potential clinching games to become the first team ever to miss the playoffs two seasons in a row after winning the Stanley Cup.

A 2-5-0 run to close out last season denied them a chance to defend their title as the Canes missed the playoffs by four points; the Hurricanes finished this season 2-3-1 to miss by a margin that could be as little as one point when the regular season ends tonight.

After Friday's loss, the Hurricanes assumed their season was over. The events of Saturday night only confirmed what they already feared.

Sergei Fedorov scored the winning goal for the Capitals, who closed out the season with seven straight wins -- two over Carolina -- and 11 wins in their final 12 games. Washington finished with 94 points, Carolina 92 -- ninth in the Eastern Conference.

The Hurricanes opened the season with an 11-4-3 record before descending into three months of mediocrity that saw four Cup-winning players traded -- Cory Stillman, Mike Commodore, Craig Adams and Andrew Ladd -- in an attempt to reverse the slide.

On Feb. 14, the Canes lost captain Rod Brind'Amour for the season with a knee injury but their turnaround was already in progress. With Eric Staal and AHL call-ups like Ryan Bayda and Keith Aucoin picking up the slack, the Canes went 21-10-2 after their low-water mark on Jan. 17.

At the All-Star break in January, with 30 games to play, Hurricanes coach Peter Laviolette said the Canes would need 20 wins to make the playoffs. They won 19.

"I'm proud of the way our team battled," Staal said. "I'm proud of the way we worked, the way we played the game, the way we competed over the last while, the last 30 games.

"We had a meeting and we set out to accomplish something and came up one win short of what we wanted to get. I'm still proud of the way we played and how we worked. It's definitely tough, though, when you're one short."

They now face some serious self-analysis going into the offseason. Wesley and Bret Hedican could retire, which would provoke a changing of the guard on the blue line, while this season proved the necessity of having more competition for Cam Ward in goal.

Ward, who fought inconsistency again in his second season as a starter, played Carolina's final 20 games and 33 of the Canes' final 34.

Wesley, Hedican, Sergei Samsonov, Aucoin, Bayda, Wade Brookbank and John Grahame are all unrestricted free agents this summer, while five other key players are restricted free agents. The Canes have eight forwards, three defensemen and Ward already under contract for next season.

Meanwhile, Laviolette's rush to get Chad LaRose, Ray Whitney, Justin Williams and Matt Cullen back into the lineup will long be discussed among Hurricanes fans who thought their replacements were doing just fine -- not to mention the effect on the team's toughness when Brookbank and Tim Conboy were removed to make room for the returning veterans.

There's plenty of time to debate those points. For the second year in a row, the Canes face a long, long summer after a season of considerable promise ended once again in frustration and failure.