Where is Carolina Hurricanes’ vaunted depth? Finally tested, they need to find it
For the first time in the 2026 NHL playoffs, the Carolina Hurricanes were forced to play from behind Monday night.
For the first time, Frederik Andersen looked leaky — early on, anyway, before settling into a rhythm.
And for the first time, it looked as though the “Kids and the Hall” line might not bail the Hurricanes out on offense.
How did Carolina handle it?
Fair-to-middlin’.
Oh, and the Hall-Stankoven-Blake line did, eventually, bail the Canes out.
Again.
That doesn’t change the fact that the Philadelphia Flyers did Monday what Ottawa was never able to do — took a lead against Carolina. Then, the Flyers did to the Hurricanes what the Canes had done to Ottawa in four games, and Philly in Game 1: They locked the game down, created a dead zone through the center of the ice and forced everything wide or deep.
Even the winner, another in Hall’s mounting playoff highlight reel, was greasy.
“When you score in overtime, it seems like parts of your memory go,” Hall said after the game. “That was a gritty goal. I didn’t do a very good job of attacking tonight, personally, and I got that puck and wanted to get to the middle of the ice as much as I could and got the shot off and got the rebound.”
Home-ice advantage in Round 2? Intact, barely. Air of invincibility? Damaged. Momentum? Still there … maybe?
Two days off will help.
The Canes got into their precarious position Monday because of uncharacteristic unforced errors. First, while defending a Philadelphia power play, Andersen poked the puck up the middle rather than cover it. The resulting shot from defender Jamie Drysdale zipped past his helmet and ended the Hurricanes’ NHL-record streak of minutes leading or tied to open the playoffs at 337:55. The Flyers added another for good measure just 39 seconds later when Sean Couturier camped alone in front of the net and pounded a pass from Carl Grundstrom past Andersen.
The Canes remained in that position with even more unforced errors — two puck-over-glass penalties and a too-many-men call among them.
And they’re going to keep finding themselves in this position unless their top players start playing like their top players.
We saw minor glimpses Monday.
Nikolaj Ehlers scored for Carolina later in the first period — from Blake and K’Andre Miller on the power play — his first goal of the playoffs.
And Seth Jarvis finally found the net for his first of the playoffs — after he changed lines to skate with Jordan Staal and Ehlers.
Where is Sebastian Aho? Andrei Svechnikov? And yes, despite his goal, let’s include Jarvis here, too. Two Olympians and a would-have-been Russian Olympian. Four total goals (two into an empty net), four total assists.
That isn’t enough for a troika that pulls down about $25 million per season, more than five times the combined salaries of Blake, Stankoven and Hall.
Most NHL coaches won’t publicly assign ranks to their forward lines. Carolina’s Rod Brind’Amour bristles at the notion, though in the Canes’ case, he’s probably closer to accurate than most of the league’s coaches (Pretty sure whichever line Macklin Celebrini is on is the Sharks’ “No. 1” line, for instance). The Hurricanes preach depth, preach playing a certain way: Quick. Gritty. Suffocating. Waves of pressure.
But when results matter most, the team’s star players need to play like its star players. Someone in that group needs to take charge and lead the way. Typically, the best players in the regular season become a team’s best players in the playoffs. They get more ice time, more opportunity. Others feed off of them.
Sure you need depth, too, ideally a second or even a third line with solid numbers, as well. That’s what separates the wheat from the chaff. And the Canes are getting that in spades.
Each round of the NHL playoffs is ostensibly tougher, because each team you face should be better than the previous opponent. What worked — barely, in some cases — against Ottawa, and what worked against an admittedly tired and travel-weary Philly team in Game 1, isn’t going to fly going forward.
Brind’Amour has been blunt about that, saying more than once that Aho, Jarvis and Svechnikov need to be “better.”
He said it again Monday.
“It’s probably a good sign for us that we have another level,” Brind’Amour said. “We all know it. We’re finding ways to get it done, and it’s just a matter of time before these guys start chipping in in that department, because, again, it’s an area where we have to be better.”
“Better” isn’t enough at this point, though. The Hurricanes need their best players to be elite.
Their Stanley Cup Playoff longevity depends on it.
