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Three Carolina Hurricanes New Year’s Resolutions
Main Photo Credit: James Guillory-Imagn Images

The 2024 year is almost over and 2025 is right around the corner. With so much happening in the 2024-25 season already, as well as the end of the 2023-24 season and the offseason, the Carolina Hurricanes will be looking forward. As many of us do, establishing some New Year’s resolutions becomes an end-of-year tradition. Whether we hold to them is another story. Well, the Hurricanes have a few resolutions they will be looking at coming into 2025.

Three Hurricanes Resolutions

Get Brent Burns Going

It’s no secret that the Hurricanes offence runs through its defence. This is a top-to-bottom effort for the team’s six (or seven) defencemen. But they need their top offensive defenceman going. A few seasons ago they acquired an aging, but still highly effective, Brent Burns from the San Jose Sharks. The first two seasons for Burns in Carolina were great. Playing alongside the strong defensive defenceman Jaccob Slavin, Burns could wheel and deal as he wanted and was putting the puck in the net.

But things have not been as great for Burns this season. He is still playing alongside Slavin and logging top-pairing minutes, but the production has not been the same. So far in 36 games, Burns has only put up 12 points, including three goals. All of his points are at even strength except one assist coming on the power play. Coming to Carolina he quarterbacked the top power play unit. But now with the effectiveness of Shayne Gostisbehere, he has moved to power play unit two and sometimes is not even playing at the point.

On top of the pure stats, the advanced analytics have been interesting. He still logs on average 21:17 minutes per game of ice time. He leads the team’s defencemen in 5v5 on-ice expected goals for per 60 minutes played with 3.2 and shots on goal per game at 1.6 according to MoneyPuck. His goals scored above expected is positive and his .31 goals per 60 minutes also is tied for team lead for defencemen.

However, he has a team-worst 57% Corsi, 56% Fenwick and on-ice expected goals percentage of 54.5%. So it’s interesting. He’s not doing bad and is still generating offence, but is also giving up a lot. For a top pairing defenceman though, you’d like to see the production tick up. Seeing his ice time on the power play pretty significantly reduced also doesn’t help. But Gostisbehere has been pretty good on PP1 so that is what it is.

Father time may be FINALLY catching up to Burns. He is still an effective defenceman but is not quite showing the top pairing power that he has for most of his career. For Carolina to be deadly, they need their top-pairing offensive defenceman to be a consistent threat every time he is on the ice. If this is just a product of age, head coach Rod Brind’Amour may have to figure out how to manage his deployment. With the other pairings working fairly well so far, this will be a task. But hopefully, Burns can find the magic again in 2025. We all know he has the work ethic and attitude.

Keep Martin Necas in the Points Race

Martin Necas started the season like a shot out of a cannon. After an uncertain offseason, he quickly quieted any doubters and was producing in waves on the score sheet. At one point he was leading the league in points and wasn’t looking to be slowing down. But as the Hurricanes play as a whole slumped, so did Necas’s production. This leads to a bit of a chick or the egg conundrum. Were the Hurricanes producing so well due to Necas? Or was Necas producing so well due to the production around him?

Most likely there is some truth to both. Through the Hurricanes win over Colorado on December 5th, Necas had put up 41 points. He was playing with confidence and creating space for scoring opportunities. He was also attacking the left side of the ice where he loves to shoot the puck. But since then, Necas has only put up three points in his last ten games and zero in his last six. None of these have come on the man advantage. He still leads the team in points, but now everyone has seen that he can produce at elite levels. The second line of Eric Robinson, Jesperi Kotkaniemi, and Necas was working well for a while. But Brind’Amour split them up and they haven’t been able to reach the same consistency when put together again since then.

Whether Necas needs to take that step forward and carry the team by leading on the scoresheet again, or the entire team needs to wake up to push him forward, it’s no secret that him producing has correlated directly with Carolina’s success this season. Not to mention, it would be pretty special if Necas could hit 100 points and be the first Hurricanes player to do so since Eric Staal did in 2005-06. No other Hurricanes player has actually hit 90 since then for that matter.

Maintain Consistency and Identity

An 82-game season is long and there are always going to be ups and downs. Some teams have more downs and others have more ups. But essentially everyone has both. At the end of the day though, consistency is key. In a more narrow sense, for example, Carolina could use consistency in net. Injuries have plagued the team for a few seasons now and as good as Frederik Andersen has been, the injury trouble might be enough to cause Carolina to be on the goalie search.

Consistency is key in everything, but looking big picture is most important. Long win streaks are great but what this team needs in 2025 is consistent effort and results each night. What we mean is losses will happen, but you want to limit any streaks. And you want to bring the same effort each night that exemplifies the identity of the team.

Brind’Amour coached Hurricanes teams have always exemplified the identity of strong defence, heavy forecheck, a plethora of shots, and controlling play. Are there shortcomings to this style? Sure. But when everyone buys into the system it generally works pretty well. You can look at this season to see that. The beginning of the year saw everyone playing this style. But the latest slump the team has experienced has not only been marked by losses, but a lot of lost puck battles, inability to break the puck out, weaker forechecks, and many mental mistakes. Getting back to that identity is essential for 2025. They did so against the New Jersey Devils on December 28th. But maintaining that effort in 2025 is even more important.

Only 2025 will show whether the team can accomplish some of these resolutions.

This article first appeared on Last Word On Sports and was syndicated with permission.

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