Carolina Hurricanes’ years of injury luck may have run out, at the wrong time
Ryan Dzingel wasn’t exactly on solid ground even before Nikita Zadorov gave him a nudge in the back, sending Dzingel into the corner boards feet-first and off balance. Dzingel’s right leg went one way, his left leg went the other and the Carolina Hurricanes forward immediately rolled over to grab his right leg in pain.
Dzingel had to be helped off the ice, putting no weight on his right skate, an all-too familiar scene for the Hurricanes over the past six weeks. It started with Dougie Hamilton’s broken leg in Columbus before the carnage last Saturday in Toronto when the Hurricanes lost both goalies and another of their top defensemen. First James Reimer left with what looked like a left knee injury, then Petr Mrazek after a head-on collision with Kyle Clifford, then Brett Pesce with a banged-up shoulder.
What had been the healthiest team in the NHL was suddenly very much not, which made it even more of a relief than it would have been for the Hurricanes otherwise Friday when Dzingel was back on the bench to start the next period, apparently double-jointed or something.
Still, the Hurricanes have lost two straight since the miraculous win over the Maple Leafs after Friday’s 3-2 loss to the Colorado Avalanche. Teuvo Teravainen scored twice in the third to give the Hurricanes a chance, but it was hard to look at the defensive breakdowns that led to all three Colorado goals and not wonder if the missing bodies were taking an inevitable toll.
“We’re hitting that bump in the road,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “There’s a little adversity with the injuries and some real good hockey we haven’t been rewarded for.”
Injuries have become a huge concern for the Hurricanes as they try to scrape their way into the playoffs, something they haven’t really had to address as a franchise in the past five seasons. Maybe here or there, like Jordan Staal’s concussion last season, but rarely in a wave like this. That left the Hurricanes scrambling to add a pair of defensemen at Monday’s trade deadline to fill the gaps, one of whom is also injured, for the moment at least.
Having to worry about this kind of thing is one way to appreciate what a luxury it has been for the Hurricanes not to have to worry about it. Since 2014, when the Hurricanes were the eighth-most injured team in the NHL, they’ve been in the healthiest third of the league every season since, according to publicly available numbers from mangameslost.com, a site that keeps track while the NHL does not. In 2018, they were 30th. Last year, 26th. This year, they’re 27th — with a bullet.
When Hamilton went down on Jan. 16, the Hurricanes had lost only 53 man-games to injury in 47 games, an extraordinary figure. (In 2018, when only the Cup-winning Washington Capitals were healthier, the Hurricanes lost 93.) After Friday, they’re at 77 and going up in increments of five for the foreseeable future with the handful of players out. When Dzingel went down, it looked for all the world like that might click up to six.
It looks like it may stay at five for a while. Pesce is mulling surgery, Hamilton already had it, Reimer isn’t expected back anytime soon, Mrazek is dealing with concussion symptoms and new acquisition Sami Vatanen has a foot injury.
“Moving forward, there’s no time for woe is us, woe is me,” Hurricanes forward Jordan Martinook said. “We gotta go. We’re on the outside looking in.”
All of which has left the Hurricanes patching together a defense and relying on a pair of goalies who a week ago had spent the entire season in the AHL, even if both impressed in training camp way back in September. Alex Nedeljkovic took the loss Tuesday against the Dallas Stars; Anton Forsberg took it Friday against the Avalanche, left utterly helpless on all three goals, especially Samuel Girard’s game-winner late in the third.
It all goes together. The combination of the upheaval in net along with the turnover on the blue line has left the Hurricanes off balance at a point in the season when they should be honing their game for the postseason — if there is one, since there’s no room for error in the standings, healthy or otherwise.
