The Carolina Hurricanes have their backs against the wall.
For the second straight season, the Canes find themselves facing a 3-0 series deficit and while the main blame has fallen squarely on the lackluster power play which has gone -1-for-15 to start the series, there's also another glaring issue.
The secondary scoring is nowhere to be seen.
The Hurricanes top line of Sebastian Aho, Andrei Svechnikov and Jake Guentzel has been electric, keeping Carolina in every game of the series so far, but everyone else has gone AWOL.
In the five-game, first round series against the New York Islanders, the Hurricanes had 12 different goal scorers and 17 skaters register at least one point.
In that series, it felt like there was always a new set of players picking up the slack for the top line that had registered just a single 5v5 goal in the opening series.
Seth Jarvis and Stefan Noesen led the way with three goals apiece and Evgeny Kuznetsov and Teuvo Teravainen where big contributors.
But now, in three games against the Rangers, the Canes have had just six different goal scorers and the top line has accounted for six of the Hurricanes' eight total goals.
In fact in a reverse of fate, the Canes have only gotten a single 5v5 goal from a forward outside of Aho, Svechnikov and Guentzel — Martin Necas' in-alone tally in Game 1.
So while yes, the power play has been the number one problem, the lack of depth contributions is just as much of an issue.
There's legitimate criticism to make on the team's center depth which outside Aho, has lacked that offensive punch.
But this is still a team that had nearly six 20-goal scorers and 12 different double-digit scorers entering the postseason.
For them to now be coming up empty is the worst possible situation for Carolina to find themselves in.
If they want to beat the odds, they need more out of everyone else because winning the shots on goal or chances battle isn't going to cut it.
Last season's second round heroes where Jordan Martinook and Jesper Fast.
The Canes need similar unlikely heroes to step up if they want their season to carry on.
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