The 2006 Carolina Hurricanes

[Franck]

Since we're in the mood for evaluating the early post-lockout Cup winners, let's talk about the first and arguably weakest out of the bunch, the 2006 Carolina Hurricanes.

Has there ever been a more Hall of Very Good-y Cup winner? Deadline acquisition Mark Recchi was the only Hall of Famer on a team that sported HoVG stalwarts like Rod Brind'Amour, Eric Staal, Doug Weight, Justin Williams, Glen Wesley and my personal favourite of the bunch, the often underrated Ray Whitney.

A Cup winner boasting only a single HoFer has to be a pretty rare occurrence, there was some pretty solid depth to that forward group though, the defencemen are pretty unimpressive on paper while 22-year-old Cam Ward displaced Martin Gerber and had a playoff performance for the ages in net.

How do they compare to other Cup winning teams? Underrated or one of the weakest post-expansion?

Click to read more...

 

[buffalowing88]

I think that team had incredible forward depth and a very solid goaltending tandem. The defense was underwhelming but healthy for most of the run if I'm not mistaken and Laviolette was really coming into his own as a coach early on in his career.

They also were probably only the third most talented team in that conference and had no right beating a Buffalo team that was without 4 of their 6 defensemen by the end of the series.

Living in NC when the run happened and being an 18 year old Sabres fan, I was definitely devoting more time to watching hockey at that time then any point in my life haha and I didn't miss a Hurricanes game all season. I think the main things that stood out were Brindamour playing lights out two-way hockey, a cast of savvy vets that showed up in the big moments (Stillman, Whitney, Recchi, Weight, etc.), and two young forwards having great seasons in Staal and Justin Williams. I also remember Gerber being quite the goalie but Ward just ended up being the young up-and-comer who took them over the hump.

Definitely too deep and experienced to definitively call them the worst post-05 Cup champion but I would say the case can certainly be made. I don't think the 2009 Penguins are necessarily better than them.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Canes were very fortunate to face a rather lackluster Edmonton team in the finals.

The Oilers rode Dwayne Roloston's spectacular goaltending to the finals, where he was hurt in Game 1.

There best forward in the playoffs was Fernando Pisani (14 goals).

 

[GMR]

They had a terrific regular season. Lots of depth at forward. No superstars and a weak defense. Goaltending came alive in the playoffs.

The knock on them will always be that Buffalo was decimated on defense in the ECF and Edmonton was playing without Roloson, who carried them to the SCF. Something Canes fans will always have to hear.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Basically what you have with that Hurricanes team is a roster where every player was at or near the top of his game, with no exploitable passengers. If we're comparing careers, yes they are obviously a weaker group than superstar-led teams. If we're talking about what a team actually did on the ice in that time and place, that's a different story. They're comfortably within the performance range of a normal Cup team.

"Only 1 Hall of Famer" is very likely to change. Brind'amour is pretty widely recognized as a snub these days, one which is likely to be resolved now that he's part of the coaching fraternity. Eric Staal wouldn't be a shock to be inducted, having been the leading scorer on that team, but he's not even retired yet. Laviolette is also very likely to make the Hall, with the 2006 run a big part of his argument.

In regards to the Buffalo series, I will point out for the 10,000th time that the Canes finished ahead of Buffalo that year, and won the regular season series as well as the playoff series. The playoff outcome was not an upset -- the Sabres played over their heads to make the series close given the circumstances. Likewise the Oilers got better goaltending after Roloson left the series; they lost because their offense couldn't get rolling the way it had earlier in the playoffs.

 

[quoipourquoi]

The Hurricanes were a great offensive team with the type of fatal flaw most likely to cure itself over a small sample size. That makes them dangerous.

52 wins. Not a small number.

 

[Zenos]

Canes were very fortunate to face a rather lackluster Edmonton team in the finals.

The Oilers rode Dwayne Roloston's spectacular goaltending to the finals, where he was hurt in Game 1.

There best forward in the playoffs was Fernando Pisani (14 goals).

He may have been the highest scorer - but wasn't necessarily the best forward. That was an ensemble cast also featuring Horcoff, Hemsky, Smyth, Pecca, and Samsonov. It wasn't a forward corps with star-power, but it was surprisingly deep.
Oh and it helps when you have a defenceman named Pronger putting up a MVP-like performance with 21pts in 24 games.

And that lackluster team bounced a historically good Wings team in 6 games before convincingly disposing of the Sharks and Ducks. Did Roloson play a decisive role? Yes absolutely, particularly in the first two rounds - but the Oilers still managed to take the finals to 7 games after he went down.

Funny how Roloson is always brought up when talking about 2006, but the actual Conn Smythe winner (and a real difference maker in the finals series), Cam Ward is rarely talked about.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

He may have been the highest scorer - but wasn't necessarily the best forward. That was an ensemble cast also featuring Horcoff, Hemsky, Smyth, Pecca, and Samsonov. It wasn't a forward corps with star-power, but it was surprisingly deep.
Oh and it helps when you have a defenceman named Pronger putting up a MVP-like performance with 21pts in 24 games.

And that lackluster team bounced a historically good Wings team in 6 games before convincingly disposing of the Sharks and Ducks. Did Roloson play a decisive role? Yes absolutely, particularly in the first two rounds - but the Oilers still managed to take the finals to 7 games after he went down.

Funny how Roloson is always brought up when talking about 2006, but the actual Conn Smythe winner (and a real difference maker in the finals series), Cam Ward is rarely talked about.

Agreed.

Peca was probably their best forward.

But 14 goals is 14 goals. Twice as many as any player. And it included the Game 5 OT goal that kept the Oilers alive in the finals.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

i compare that 2006 hurricanes team to the '91 north stars. a deep team with core players playing the best hockey of their careers (brind'amour, staal, stillman/broten, gagner, bellows), each with an infusion of offence from post-prime veterans who still were contributing at a high level (recchi, whitney weight/propp, bobby smith), young guy who would turn into so much more contributing major secondary scoring (j will/modano), a young power forward that got hurt (erik cole/dahlen), a totally nondescript defence (except mark tinordi, more on him later), a hot goalie (ward/casey), and an even hotter powerplay.

the difference is carolina had more scoring depth, with matt cullen, young andrew ladd, and weaker role players in the adams boys, while minnesota was led by mark tinordi playing out of his mind and had much better defensive role players in gaetan duchesne, stew gavin, and marc bureau.

the other difference, of course, is one team played an edmonton team being completely and totally carried by one great player that lost its starting goalie while the other played a team led by mario with six of the top twenty scorers of all time and two, maybe three, more hall of famers on top of that.

but it sort of evens out to about the same. both teams had basically everything line up perfectly. if you had the exact same collection of players one year earlier or one year later, that team probably doesn't make the conference finals.

 

[quoipourquoi]

Does whoever comes out of the East get underrated if they don’t put enough of a beating on the Western champion? The West was down to 95-99 point teams after Round 1, so it was obvious the East were the favorites. Just seems like if Whitney doesn’t hit the post in Game 5, Carolina maybe gets a little more credit than they do now.

Pretty fine line between almost losing to Edmonton and knocking them out with a 17-10 goal differential.

 

[MadArcand]

i compare that 2006 hurricanes team to the '91 north stars. a deep team with core players playing the best hockey of their careers (brind'amour, staal, stillman/broten, gagner, bellows), each with an infusion of offence from post-prime veterans who still were contributing at a high level (recchi, whitney weight/propp, bobby smith), young guy who would turn into so much more contributing major secondary scoring (j will/modano), a young power forward that got hurt (erik cole/dahlen), a totally nondescript defence (except mark tinordi, more on him later), a hot goalie (ward/casey), and an even hotter powerplay.

the difference is carolina had more scoring depth, with matt cullen, young andrew ladd, and weaker role players in the adams boys, while minnesota was led by mark tinordi playing out of his mind and had much better defensive role players in gaetan duchesne, stew gavin, and marc bureau.

the other difference, of course, is one team played an edmonton team being completely and totally carried by one great player that lost its starting goalie while the other played a team led by mario with six of the top twenty scorers of all time and two, maybe three, more hall of famers on top of that.

but it sort of evens out to about the same. both teams had basically everything line up perfectly. if you had the exact same collection of players one year earlier or one year later, that team probably doesn't make the conference finals.

Uh yeah, 52-22-8, .683 T-3rd overall vs. 27-39-14, .425 16th overall is totally similar. Jebus.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

Uh yeah, 52-22-8, .683 T-3rd overall vs. 27-39-14, .425 16th overall is totally similar. Jebus.

throw that salt over your shoulder man. that was a really good and deep minnesota team that totally underachieved in the regular season.

as per our resident north stars expert:

As a team they probably underachieved somewhat the first half of the season, but through key moves and through commitment and coaching they just found their way. They bought into Gainey's defensive and opportunistic style of game and things just started to roll.

Come playoff time, they were on a 14-10-6 roll (a 91 point pace which was darn good at that point in time and would have placed them 6th overall) which included a 21 game stretch where they went 13-4-4 and had a load of confidence. They were well coached and ready.

note also, both teams missed the playoffs the next season.

The Hurricanes were a great offensive team with the type of fatal flaw most likely to cure itself over a small sample size. That makes them dangerous.

what was their fatal flaw?

 

[MadArcand]

If anything, you can compare that Minnesota team with the 2006 Oilers.

 

[quoipourquoi]

what was their fatal flaw?

They were 10 GA over the league average. That’s usually problematic enough to be exploited, but they shaved about 4 shots and .71 goals-against-per-60 off their numbers (it’s even more impressive when Ward’s numbers are isolated).

To me, it’s like when Osgood got hot in 2009. It’s nothing that necessarily should be expected, and Carolina would be a formidable team even if it hadn’t happened, but because it did happen, Carolina was a beast for 2 months.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

If anything, you can compare that Minnesota team with the 2006 Oilers.

how do you figure?

the 2006 oilers weren't a team with no hall of famers their prime, a deep forward corps, no name d, a hot goalie, and one of the hottest powerplays in playoff history

 

[JKM]

"Only 1 Hall of Famer" is very likely to change. Brind'amour is pretty widely recognized as a snub these days, one which is likely to be resolved now that he's part of the coaching fraternity. Eric Staal wouldn't be a shock to be inducted, having been the leading scorer on that team, but he's not even retired yet. Laviolette is also very likely to make the Hall, with the 2006 run a big part of his argument.

If you count Laviolette as a possible Hall of Famer, Karmanos and Rutherford could be mentioned as well. Or at least Rutherford.

 

[LeafalCrusader]

What happened that caused them to miss the playoffs the following season? That was an amazing drop off.

 

[tarheelhockey]

If you count Laviolette as a possible Hall of Famer, Karmanos and Rutherford could be mentioned as well. Or at least Rutherford.

I don't think the GM and owner matter very much to the actual winning of hockey games. If you're in a playoff series you're not anxious over whether your guys can handle the other team's owner.

The head coach on the other hand definitely does matter. There's a reason the 2006 Hurricanes won a Stanley Cup and the 2010-14 Penguins didn't.

 

[Surrounded By Ahos]

Funny how Roloson is always brought up when talking about 2006, but the actual Conn Smythe winner (and a real difference maker in the finals series), Cam Ward is rarely talked about.

THANK YOU!

As a Hurricanes fan, the whining about Roloson getting hurt bugs me a bit given that Carolina played nearly the entire playoffs with their backup. Having depth is important in the NHL. At all positions. I think Ward's lackluster career after that run makes people forget how well he played.

Also, as has been mentioned, the Canes had a damn good record in the regular season. Only Ottawa and Detroit had more points.

 

[Surrounded By Ahos]

What happened that caused them to miss the playoffs the following season? That was an amazing drop off.

Oh several reasons.

Ward wasn't quite ready to take the reins full time and John Grahame was not the right guy to be backing him up.

Several guys took a step back or missed time. Stillman had shoulder surgery in September and missed half the season. Kaberle also had shoulder problems, I believe, and missed most of the season. The defense as a whole was pretty thin in 05-06. In 06-07 they lost Aaron Ward, and the only guy to play more than 70 games was Mike Commodore. The guys who filled those gaps (Hutchinson, Babchuk, Tanabe) just were not that good.

Recchi and Weight were rentals who signed with their old teams, and were missed.

Matt Cullen left and the guys brought in to replace him (Belanger and Letowski) were not close to filling his skates. Belanger's most memorable moment as a Cane was him getting his jersey stuck in the glass.

 

[tarheelhockey]

What happened that caused them to miss the playoffs the following season? That was an amazing drop off.

Short answer:

1) Ward wasn't ready to play a whole season, let alone replicate his playoff performance for that long. He was not good in 60 games. In the other games, they went with... John Grahame.

2) Compared to the playoff run, the 2007 Hurricanes were missing about a forward line and defensive pair's worth of talent: Weight, Recchi, Cullen, Ward, Kaberle. Their replacements all failed to fill the gaps. And on top of that, some of the key returning players hit a wall (e.g. Eric Staal going from 100 points to 70).

All of that set them up to be a team prone to losing streaks. They started 0-3-1, finished 2-5-0, and missed the playoffs by four points.

 

[Zenos]

Just seems like if Whitney doesn’t hit the post in Game 5, Carolina maybe gets a little more credit than they do now.

I suppose so, but I actually doubt it.
They’d still be remembered as the team who "only" had to knock out the Oilers, another team which (unfairly) doesn’t get the credit it deserves. The fact that both teams missed the next postseason only seems to have solidified this notion.

In the end, it was a strange series. Watching games 6 and 7 was like watching 4 different teams on the ice.

 

[tarheelhockey]

I suppose so, but I actually doubt it.
They’d still be remembered as the team who "only" had to knock out the Oilers, another team which (unfairly) doesn’t get the credit it deserves. The fact that both teams missed the next postseason only seems to have solidified this notion.

This is true. If the Oilers get swept it's just evidence both that they were a weak team, and therefore the team who beat them was weak. If the Oilers push it to Game 7, it's evidence that the team that beat them was weak, so they must have been even weaker.

There's really no winning in this dynamic.

 

[MadArcand]

how do you figure?

the 2006 oilers weren't a team with no hall of famers their prime, a deep forward corps, no name d, a hot goalie, and one of the hottest powerplays in playoff history

Literally the quote from tjcurrie you posted:
"As a team they probably underachieved somewhat the first half of the season, but through key moves and through commitment and coaching they just found their way. They bought into <..> defensive and opportunistic style of game and things just started to roll."

That's exactly the Oilers' story that season. Underachieved, finally got a good goalie, went on a roll.

Also, the North Stars were definitely not particularly deep up front - more Oilers' type of forward corps, actually. No name D? Tinordi is massively inferior to Pronger, but Chambers, Giles & Wilkinson compare favorably to Smith, Spacek & Staios. And if Roloson wasn't hot in that playoff run, then nobody was.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

This is true. If the Oilers get swept it's just evidence both that they were a weak team, and therefore the team who beat them was weak. If the Oilers push it to Game 7, it's evidence that the team that beat them was weak, so they must have been even weaker.

There's really no winning in this dynamic.

i think winning could only be beating that buffalo team at full strength. too bad we never got to see who would win if both teams were healthy.

after pronger, my clearest memory of those playoffs was henrik tallinder playing norris hockey. but then i'd just moved to western new york and i have feelings about those two buffalo teams.