The Carolina Hurricanes lost again last night, falling 6-2 to the Bruins in Boston.
The loss was Carolina’s 11th regulation loss in its last 13 games. In those regulation losses, the ‘Canes have been outscored 49-16 -- a negative goal differential of 33.
But hey, at least they beat Winnipeg once during that stretch.
Even worse for Carolina fans, the Hurricanes were once looking looking like a sure bet to make the playoffs. On March 12, not even a month ago, Sports Club Stats had their postseason chances at 94.0%. But those chances are down to 1.5% today.
Goaltending has been the biggest issue for Carolina. When starter Cam Ward went down with an MCL sprain in early March, it left Dan Ellis and Justin Peters to share the duties. Clearly, neither has been up to the task.
Which begs the question: Should ‘Canes general manager Jim Rutherford have tried harder to address the goaltending prior to the trade deadline? Not talking about Roberto Luongo, but maybe a call to Edmonton about Nikolai Khabibulin?
Chances are, Rutherford did explore the rental goalie market. And to be fair, there wasn’t a whole lot available. Remember that the Oilers are in a playoff race, too. They weren’t going to just give away their veteran backup.
In addition to Ward’s absence, Carolina can also point to the injury to defenseman Justin Faulk, who went down on March 19 and hasn’t played since.
“When you lose your number one goalie and your top defenseman,” coach Kirk Muller said recently, “it’s a bit of a challenge.”
Still, the losses are too bad to attribute solely to injuries, no matter how key the players. Every team deals with injuries. Not all of them completely implode.
Carolina hosts Pittsburgh tonight.
Related: ‘Canes GM Rutherford ‘about as frustrated as you can get’