Is Hurricanes’ Stanley Cup win the start of a dynasty?
After years of postseason disappointment, the Carolina Hurricanes are finally Stanley Cup champions.
Now, as we do with every champion, it’s time to take stock of where this team is in its long-term build and pontificate about whether or not they have what it takes to build a sustained winner that can hoist the Cup more than once.
With proof of concept behind their team building and head coach Rod Brind’Amour’s system, it’s easy to see the Hurricanes as a group that can.
Sebastian Aho, Seth Jarvis, Andrei Svechnikov, Logan Stankoven, Jackson Blake, Jaccob Slavin, K’Andre Miller and Brandon Bussi are all under contract for at least three more seasons signed to salary cap hits that span from perfectly reasonable to downright ridiculous in terms of the excess value they provide to a roster.
On Tuesday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, host Tyler Yaremchuk and co-host and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton discussed whether or not Carolina’s front office and talented core will be able to engineer the NHL’s next dynasty.
Tyler Yaremchuk: But obviously, Hutts, since you weren’t here yesterday, I wanted to pick your brain a little bit on this Carolina team becoming Stanley Cup champions, the second time in franchise history. I kind of said this morning, I was on one of our network shows “The Sauce,” and I said this Stanley Cup win for the Canes almost allows you to rewrite history a little bit with those teams that got close and went to the conference finals because now it’s like… Nevermind, those trips to the conference finals, they aren’t failures now. You can look back, and Gary Bettman said it when he handed out the cup. The team in the NHL with the most regular season and playoff wins over the last eight years is the Carolina Hurricanes. I look at them now and go, man, they got close twice. They finally won it. Is this a team that you think is maybe primed to go on more runs and keep doing this year after year?
Carter Hutton: Yeah, I do… The factor is now when you look at this team, I think your opinion has shifted, right? Like we went from being this team that’s just a failure, and they can’t get over the top. They don’t have the goal scorer, and they don’t have that X-factor player. But they were just knocking at the door consistently, and now you look at this run that Rod Brind’Amour has had with this group and again, something we’re going to highlight. A big topic of mine I want to bring up is the changing in ownership and Tom Dundon coming in, what he’s been able to do and creating a consistent playoff team. And for years we’ve sat here and we’ve judged the Carolina Hurricanes as that team that kind of breaks your heart. You know, you’ve thought about them as we make predictions going into the finals and into the playoffs, and everything we do in media and in sports in general. But now they have a situation where this has been an absolute powerhouse, and do they become the template for teams that try to build around to be consistent? We’re talking about the Buffalo Sabres. They didn’t make the playoffs for 14 years. We’re talking about different teams that are missing in-and-out consistency. That is something that the Carolina Hurricanes have had and something that stands out for me is the comments made by Taylor Hall. First overall pick, a guy who has played in all sorts of situations. When he got traded to Carolina, he talked about how he wasn’t in good enough shape to skate and play their game. And every single series we’ve talked about, it’s been, well, that team ran out of gas. They ran out of gas. They ran out of gas. Or is that just the Carolina factor that this team is so well-conditioned, so well-prepared? I guess they just never waiver from the way that they play, and they just wear you down, and I think right now that’s why we’re looking at them holding the Stanley Cup.
You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…