The All-Star break is the unofficial midway point of the NHL season and so with half of the year behind them, the Carolina Hurricanes are sitting pretty and looked prime for a strong second-half push.
After a slow start, Carolina is now in second place in the Metropolitan Division and is just two points behind the New York Rangers for first with a game still in hand.
They have the 10th best record in the league and sit nine points ahead of the first team out of playoff position in the East.
This is also all in spite of a team-wide save percentage of 0.883.
A big part of the Hurricanes success this season can be attributed to their dominance on special teams.
Every season, it seems that Carolina is one of the NHL's best penalty killing squads — they've finished in the top-4 four years in a row now and this season they currently have the fourth best kill (84.2%) — but it's gone to another level as of late.
It struggled to find consistent success to open the season and was actually sub-70% through the team's first nine games.
But once things started to click, the kill took off.
Since Dec. 1, the Hurricanes have a 92.4% success rate on the penalty kill and they're the only team above 90% during that span.
The kill has become such an integral part of Carolina's identity and they take great pride in it.
"I think we're on the same page on when to pressure and when we just don't have the opportunity to," said captain Jordan Staal, who serves on the Canes' first PK unit. "But a lot of it is just hard pressure. We're pretty hard on it and guys understand that when one guy goes, we're all going. We pressure maybe a little different than most teams as pressure up a lot and on the half-walls."
The same hard forechecking pressure systems that Carolina employs at even strength is apparent on the penalty kill and it forces opponents to rush passes and easily disrupts plays.
It also helps to have a world-class defense that can all skate well and that all have extremely active sticks.
"We're trying to force teams to make three or four really good passes if they want to get a scoring chance," Staal said." It kind of exposes a lot of gaps, but our D are very quick and able to close those gaps quickly. I think our D-corp is one of the best in the league and they're quick on the PK which makes it that much more effective."
"At the end of the day, all that stuff comes down to a willingness to dig in and make good reads and that's what they've been doing," said Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour.
The other side of the special teams coin is the power play.
After it too had an uninspiring start, it has taken the team to another level.
The Hurricanes have always had a fine power play — they have had an average success rate of 21.2% over the past five regular seasons — but they're currently operating at an insane clip.
Overall on the season, the Canes have the second best power play percentage (28.0%), but since December 1, they've had the league's best power play with a 35.4% success rate.
That also includes a 13-game stretch from Dec. 12 to Jan. 6 where the power play clicked at a 45.5% success rate.
But if you ask Brind'Amour what's been different as of late, you might be disappointed by the answer.
"It's funny how that goes because you're doing the same things that you've been doing all year and nothing was working," Brind'Amour said. "Now all of a sudden they start going in. I don't really have the answer, but it's nice that we're getting some bounces and getting rewarded."
While there hasn't necessarily been a change in approach, philosophy or game plan, a big part of the new-found success can be attributed to the return of Andrei Svechnikov.
In games without Svechnikov, the power play has scored on 23.78% of their chances, but with Svechnikov in the lineup, that went up to 30.77%.
He's a dynamic star for Carolina and with him in the lineup, it adds a legitimate shooting threat to a top unit with already a ton of layers.
But it hasn't just been the top unit that has been the difference for the Hurricanes.
While the five players on the top unit have scored 25 power play goals, the second has chipped in 18, all while getting substantially less time and opportunity.
The Canes have been able to roll out two dangerous units due to their wealth of talent and it's been paying dividends for the team.
Carolina still has 34 games remaining on the season and things won't get any easier as everything tightens up with the playoffs getting closer and closer.
But with the way the team has been playing in all facets of the game and with the goaltending slowly starting to iron out its wrinkles, the Canes look to be on the path back to becoming a Stanley Cup favorite.
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