They lack the star power. Aho and Geuntzel are their only two players top 50 in scoring. Aho is far from a game-changing superstar.
Fact of the matter is you need one or more of those caliber of players at key positions on your squad. The Canes remind me of a very good version of those Minnesota Wild teams in the early/mid 2010’s. Talent up and down the roster, good depth, sound everywhere, but no one who is going to take a series over.
This is the trouble with analytics poking its head again. Locations of shots doesn’t correlate to quality of shots. Yeah the Canes are analytical darlings but you’d expect a lot better results based on how effective the numbers say they are.