Kruger and TVR are massive additions. It gives the Hurricanes three defensive units, and Washington, Pittsburgh, Columbus and NYR are all 3 lines deep. Last year they had two, then they threw Derek Ryan (arguably the worst defensive center in the League) with Hanifin and AHL'er out onto the ice and prayed they woldn't **** up too much. It's why they had such an insane home-road split, they could hide those guys at home with offensive zone starts and easy competition, leaving Slavin and Staal to handle the hard work.
Now they have Slavin-Pesce; J. Staal with Faulk; and Kruger with Fleury and TVR. Fleury is the weak link here, he'll probably get burned by Kessel this year when Pitts goes 3 deep, but that is still a great improvement over last year.
Enough to make the playoffs? We'll see: but barring injury they have too much talent at defense and too much depth at forward (though lacking at center) to be a lotto team. They're better than New Jersey and Philly. Darling should be an improvement over Ward/Lack, aka the worst tandem in the League last year, whose ineptitude was still not enough to keep the Hurricanes out of the playoff race*, until the last week of March.
*: They were never in the WC slot (closest was 1 point out ) but they could have still reasonably made it until the Broons and Laffs went on winning streaks of their own.
I'll put it this way: the current Hurricanes team is their "core" going forward. J Staal, Skinner, TT, Aho, Lindholm, Rask (with Williams, Stempniak, Nordstrom, Ryan and McGinn the periphery) + Slavin, Pesce, Faulk, Hanifin + Darling.
They're still lacking a 1st line center, or even another good offensive center will do (like, say, Eric Staal at 3 million), but that's the configuration they're going with.
If they're healthy, if everyone plays to their top level and Darling plays like he's expected to (lower end starter, but not replacement level), and they
still can't make the playoffs, it's time to start panicking.