Canes Clinch Seventh Consecutive Playoff Berth

RALEIGH, NC. - They're in. Again.

In a lot of ways, it was a foregone conclusion that the Carolina Hurricanes would be in the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs. How they got here was neither routine nor gift-wrapped, but it was the expectation.

Making it is also not enough.

When Rod Brind'Amour signed his new multi-year contract extension last offseason, he talked about how the team still has the "carrot dangling in front of them" - one that needs no further explanation. The carrot can't be caught during the early days of training camp or at any point during the 82-game regular season, though. It's only at the finish line after earning 16 wins between mid-April and the end of June.

Now that the Canes have their ticket to participate in the race, they'll continue to go about their business the same way that they have since early September, one day at a time.

Over the last six years, it feels as if we've seen various iterations of the team arrive at this juncture of the season. There was the 2018-19 Cinderella-esque Wild Card team that made a run all the way to the Eastern Conference Final. The 2021-22 group posted a franchise-record 54 wins and was one of the favorites going into the dance.

Now, there's this year's roster, which, perhaps for the first time in the Brind'Amour era, started the season doubted.

The losses of longtime roster mainstays Brett Pesce, Brady Skjei, Teuvo Teravainen, and last year's trade deadline acquisition Jake Guentzel sent the team into the back half of summer with some skepticism from the national media. Where would the goal-scoring come from?

A scorching 16-5-1 start with an average of 4.0 goals per game quickly erased some of those narratives, bringing the team to American Thanksgiving atop the Eastern Conference.

Martin Necas - the league's leading scorer through the first six weeks - was a big part in that superb start. But as the team and Necas settled into their season, the former #88, along with fellow drafted-and-developed product Jack Drury, were moved to Colorado in a landscape-altering move. Taylor Hall has been a wonderful piece from that three-team move, but the bigger picture of the deal eventually only led to more questions.

In addition to the drama stemming from the late-January trade, the team went a pedestrian 18-17-3 from Nov. 29 to Mar. 1. Injuries started to pile up, and the power play slipped from seventh in the league all the way down to 22nd.

Was it just a stellar opening stretch? Were the doubters justified?

A resurgence in the form of an 11-3-0 March restored hope, as newcomers Mark Jankowski and Logan Stankoven quickly added contributions, and some noteworthy netminding, among other facets, helped Carolina secure a seventh consecutive trip to the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

If that all sounds like a roller coaster of nine months, that's because, well, it has been.

"There’s been a lot more, or maybe a few, extra up and downs throughout the year that added a little more adversity in some situations," Captain Jordan Staal said through a smile as he reflected. "There hasn’t been too much cruise control."

"A lot has happened, obviously. We lost a lot of players from last year and and even mid-season we’ve had big changes. People probably counted us out, right? Here we are," Sebastian Aho quipped.

While many pieces have changed since last year's sixth consecutive playoff berth, two things that have not are the leadership group and their belief in what the team could achieve. Although the letter-wearing quartet of Aho, Staal, Jordan Martinook, and Jaccob Slavin knew that there would be inevitable change, the end goal was never once in question.

“I think you could probably say there’s been a lot of unknown," Martinook said of the season. "There’s been a lot of changeover. I feel like there was some doubt. Not in our room, but everybody around us thought we were going to take a step back."

What was it that tethered together the unwavering belief inside the locker room?

“Results. When you’re winning games, you believe you’re a good team. Once you’ve kind of set the standard that you’re a playoff team, you don’t ever want to go back to not being a playoff team," Martinook reasoned. "It’s the funnest time of year for a reason, and you never don’t want to be there. If you believe you’re a good team and you put the work in, the results usually speak for themselves.”

Following Wednesday's 5-1 win over the Capitals, the Canes are now 324-154-48 in the regular season under Brind'Amour, giving them the NHL's second-best win percentage (.661) since the start of the 2018-19 season. But again, this isn't about regular-season success anymore.

Sure, the solidification of a playoff spot is something to be celebrated after a nine-year drought in Raleigh from 2009-2018, but the organization has made clear in recent years that there is only one acceptable outcome.

“I think that’s the beauty of playoffs. It’s incredibly hard to make it there, for one. We were going full throttle when we showed up to camp, and now it’s kind of like you have to run a second race," Staal said.

And in that second race, everyone starts at the same line. There is a home ice advantage, but there's no pole position. Whether you're the Presidents' Trophy winners, the last Wild Card team in, or anywhere in between, it's a sprint to four wins at a time.

"Like Roddy always says, you just have to get in. It doesn’t matter where or how you got in, because there are going to be 16 teams that didn’t get in and they’ll wish they were in. You just have to give yourselves a chance," Martinook supplemented.

Although each team arrives at mid-April with its own unique set of circumstances, come Round 1, Game 1, none of them seem to matter. After all, locking up a playoff spot only guarantees you one thing: four more games. That's it. Four games to prove that you're good enough and have the appropriate fortune on your side to continue your team's quest for the ultimate prize.

"You need to be ready off the bat. The beauty of the playoffs is that it’s quick. You have to be on. It’s high emotion, high intensity," Staal continued. "It’s all or nothing. That’s why people get drawn to how playoffs is, especially in the NHL. You use your past experiences and disappointments to fuel you and find ways to grind out another game."

The group also doesn't back down from showing the metaphorical scars of the aforementioned past experiences and disappointments either.

"You have to go through some stuff. It’s not always going to go your way. That just makes it so much more special," Aho shared. "There’s so many games and so many series that you look back and try to lean on, whether it’s the good stuff and you can try and look back on the positives and gain some confidence from it. At the same time, you have to learn from your mistakes."

So, as the team embarks on lucky playoff appearance number seven under Brind'Amour, some fair questions remain: What makes this group different? What's going to make this team the one that gets it done?

"Like I’ve said in past years, we have that hunger in us. Obviously, there are no guarantees. You can’t win the Stanley Cup today, or the first game of the playoffs, or in the second round. You just try and win one hockey game at a time, and that’s our approach,” Aho answered.

One game at a time, one day at a time.

"We’ve got unbelievable players. We’ve got two goalies who are playing great. We’ve got the consistency in how we play and the talent to pull it all off. Obviously, a lot of things have to line up," Staal offered. "You’d see the same team win every year if it was easy, but it’s not. To put it all together, a lot has to click, but we have the players, the system and the coach to do it. I’m excited to see us try and pull it off.”