The Hurricanes are still missing something — and Aleksander Barkov gave them proof

New York Times

4 days ago

SUNRISE, Fla. — In the end, or at least at the beginning of it, the Carolina Hurricanes did what we asked of them.
Make no mistake: The first period of the final game of their 2024-25 season never quite seemed like it'd be enough to save them. That wasn't the point. Because even in the moment, even with them at their best, the ghosts of games 1, 2 and 3 against the Florida Panthers waited around the corner. No team in the history of the NHL has dug itself a hole like that against the defending champs and lived to tell the tale.
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But in era of Hurricanes hockey that has been and may continue to be defined by widespread perception that they're lacking a sixth gear, or a knob that turns to 11, or the type of high-end talent necessary to advance to conference finals and then continue to climb, the first period felt like real, live pushback. It felt like we were learning something.
In the end, though — the real end — we learned the truth, and Aleksander Barkov taught the lesson.
'Their best player,' Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour said, 'made an elite play.'
Sebastian Aho is Carolina's best forward, their first-line center, and their highest-paid player. He's led his team in scoring in seven of the last eight seasons. And he's wonderful — creative, responsible, highly skilled, a player you can win with, a player you can build around. The question, though, as ever, is whether that's enough. The question is whether he's elite. And it's a fair one; only so many players — 10, maybe 15 — should get that label. For someone who, in his last two trips to the conference finals, had two goals in 10 games, it's tough to argue the case.
And in the first 20 minutes on Wednesday night, he did his best. Aho, at 4:39 of the first period and with his team buzzing around him, intercepted a neutral-zone pass by Florida's Gustav Forsling and, in clear, beat Sergei Bobrovsky cleanly from the slot. With 1:06 remaining, he scooped up a loose puck along the boards, took off toward Bobrovsky and used Panthers defenseman Niko Mikkola as a screen to beat Bobrovsky again.
In a period that was even in plenty of ways, Aho's goals were the difference. In a game that was just as even — something you could say about three of the five we saw here — it was not. The difference was Barkov.
Florida's first-line center is not all-world, but he's close enough to it. If Connor McDavid is at the top of the list, and if Nathan MacKinnon and Auston Matthews swap spots behind him depending on the season, Barkov is probably next in line. He's consistently the most complete player of the four, the only one who's won a Selke and one of two, along with MacKinnon, who's been the best player on a Stanley Cup champion. And as the clock drained, and media members in the press box at Lenovo Center priced out hotel rooms for a potential Game 5, Barkov pulled the plug.
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He picked up the puck deep in Carolina's zone along the right boards and carried it behind the net. Along the way, he picked up a hitchhiker — Hurricanes defenseman Dmitry Orlov — carried him into the left corner and then ejected him from the car. A move toward the crease set up a feed to Carter Verhaeghe, and that was that. Florida was up 4-3 with 7:40 left, but if you were smart, you went to bed.
'Everything happened quick,' Barkov said afterward. Orlov would agree.
'I had good momentum there, had good speed, so I just tried to protect the puck.'
Evan Rodrigues has spent plenty of time on the ice with Barkov over the last two seasons. He knows what he's watching. He knows who Barkov is and how he does what he did on Wednesday night.
'It's kind of his demeanor, to be honest, Rodrigues said. 'It's just who he is as a person. He doesn't get too high, doesn't get too low. His emotion level is always even-keeled, so when there's a stressful environment or a high-emotion environment, he's able to play his game, stick with his game, and just do the right thing over and over and over again, and his skill just kind of takes over. You never see him force anything, you never see him try anything dangerous.
'He's just all-world, all skill, all talent, and it just comes out.'
Players like Barkov making plays like the pass to Verhaeghe aren't inevitable. None of them are; a standard line about McDavid in particular is that, at times, he feels like he can simply decide to score. Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final is proof that's not the case. But the vibe exists, and that counts for something. It's not just about scoring goals or setting them up; it's about the timing. It's about the sequencing. Aho had it early. He didn't have it late.
And that's a bitter bit of irony — not just for him, either. Carolina, at last, got a two-goal, take-charge, juiced-up period from its best player, and it didn't matter all that much.
For six minutes after the loss, Aho stood at his locker, taking questions about another season that ended earlier than any hockey player would like. He answered them thoughtfully, emotionally, reasonably and honestly, talking about the second-period meltdown and missed opportunities on the power play.
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One of the questions was about the idea that losing in five games rather than four could be a moral victory
'To me, you either win or lose (a) series,' Aho said. 'What's it matter? If you lose in four or seven or whatever, you lose the series, right?
'And obviously, that's a great hockey team. I mean, one team has beat them the past three seasons, right? So we knew it was going to be a big task to try to beat them. And we truly believe that we have what it takes, but obviously fell short yet again. So, yeah. Pissed. Really pissed off.'
Brind'Amour, a few minutes later, was in a similar spot. He wasn't interested in the idea that his team should try to adapt. Florida, he said, won a Cup and might win another based on a style that isn't far off from his own. Exit your zone, enter theirs, forecheck hard, wait for your chance and capitalize.
'I feel like that's been our game for a long time. They've kind of picked it up the last couple of years and made it that much better,' he said, thumb and forefinger a couple of inches apart
'So that's what we've got to get.'
For a moment, it seemed like they had it. And now it seems more clear than ever before that they don't.
(Photo of Aleksander Barkov and Dmitry Orlov battling for possession of the puck: Jared C. Tilton / Getty Images)