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Kirk Muller faces pivotal season in Carolina

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For better or worse, the Carolina Hurricanes’ core players are locked up for the foreseeable future. Even so, there’s at least one figure in the franchise who has a lot to prove next season: head coach Kirk Muller.*

So far, the results haven’t been particularly promising, but let’s not forget that Muller hasn’t really received a full season to prove himself just yet.

Sure, he was in place in 2013, but that was just a 48-game campaign with virtually no training camp. Muller took over the Hurricanes gig during the 2011-12 season, so this represents his first opportunity to have a traditional training camp and generally install things more naturally.

Even so, it’s a challenging situation, as you can see from Hurricanes Day at PHT.


  • Muller must keep an expensive group of big-money players motivated and focused, even though most of them enjoy the comfort of long-term deals.
  • Cam Ward hopes to bounce back, but if Anton Khudobin is more than just a product of playing behind Zdeno Chara in Boston, then Muller needs to give his backup a nice amount of reps. Managing goalie duos is an underrated challenge for head coaches.
  • Finding some way to make the team’s inefficient special teams units more efficient would provide a greater margin of error.
  • He faces the challenge of the newly formed Metropolitan Division, which should almost certainly provide tougher competition than the often-putrid Southeast Division.

It won’t be easy, but at least Muller will get to do things his way in 2013-14. One can only guess how many - if any - more chances he’ll receive if it doesn’t work out next season, though.

* - At least since it seems like GM Jim Rutherford is approaching a Darcy Regier-level of job security.

More Hurricanes Day at PHT fun

Carolina leans on Cam Ward

Will the defense get better?

It could all come down to three signings

Follow James O’Brien @cyclelikesedins