Each day in the month of August we’ll be examining a different NHL team — from looking back at last season to discussing a player under pressure to focusing on a player coming off a breakthrough year to asking questions about the future. Today we look at the Carolina Hurricanes.

For more on the Hurricanes’ outlook for 2018-19…

[Looking back to 2017-18 | Under Pressure | Building off breakthrough]

1. Who is going to score the goals?

While so much gets made of the Hurricanes’ goaltending issues over the years they have also had a problem when it comes to putting the puck in their opponent’s net, having finished in the bottom-10 in goals scored in each of the past five seasons.

Then this offseason they finally traded the best pure goal-scorer on the roster (Jeff Skinner) without any proven NHL goal-scorers coming back in return to replace him in the lineup.

Could be a problem.

The Hurricanes do have some nice young talent led by Teuvo Teravainen, Victor Rask, and the outstanding and underrated Sebastian Aho, as well as some really good two-way veterans in Jordan Staal and Justin Williams. Despite that crop of forwards, they are still lacking a go-to difference-maker that could be a franchise changing player at forward.

They are hoping they have found that at the top of the draft in No. 2 overall pick Andrei Svechnikov, a monster of a prospect with superstar potential.

Along with Svechnikov, they also have 23-year-old forward Valentin Zykov who is coming off of a great year in the American Hockey League (33 goals in 63 games) and a strong first impression with the big club, recording seven points (including three goals) in 10 games.

How good Svechnikov and Zykov can be — and how quickly they can make an impact — will go a long way toward determining how good the Hurricanes’ offense can be.

They could also probably use a bounce back year from Rask after his production regressed a bit this past season.

2. Will Justin Faulk finish the season in Carolina?

With Skinner traded to the Buffalo Sabres, all eyes are now focussed on defenseman Justin Faulk when it comes to potential trades. Faulk’s name has been thrown around in trade speculation for more than a year now, and the offseason additions of Dougie Hamilton and Calvin de Haan only seemed to increase that.

Given his ability offensive he could be an attractive trade chip for teams looking to add some firepower to their blue line, and perhaps be used to help the Hurricanes deal from a position of strength (defense) to address their shortcomings offensively.

Or they could keep him and continue to build on what is already an outstanding young defense.

3. Did the Hurricanes do enough to end their playoff drought?

Even after losing Skinner in a trade to the Sabres there is still reason to believe the Hurricanes improved their outlook for the upcoming season.

The defense is significantly better with the additions of Hamilton and de Haan. It would be almost impossible for Scott Darling to be worse than he was a year ago so they should get some improvement there almost by default. Svechnikov and Zykov are unproven, but their potential is exciting.

Still, is that enough to end what is currently a nine-year playoff drought before it reaches a full decade without a single postseason game being played by the organization? Especially in a division that has the past three Stanley Cup champions and both Eastern Conference wild card teams from this past season? And especially after we seem to try and convince ourselves every summer that this season is the one where they finally they did enough to get back in the playoffs?

One of these years it has to happen … right?!

They need to make up a 14-point gap in the standings from this past season to do it, and while that is not going to be an easy task, it is also definitely not impossible. Especially if they can get adequate goaltending from Darling to fully take advantage of the young, talented defense they have assembled over the years and get a couple of breakthrough offensive performances from their prized prospects Svechnikov and Zykov.

Adam Gretz is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @AGretz.