Take a look around the professional sports landscape in North Carolina — things aren’t great.
The Carolina Panthers may have whiffed on their first overall pick in this year’s NFL Draft, selecting a quarterback, Bryce Young, who has struggled as a rookie, and gave up next year’s first round pick to select him — one that could be first overall but will belong to the Chicago Bears.
The Charlotte Hornets — beset by injuries, off-the-court issues and seemingly annual coaching and ownership upheavals — continue to sputter in the standings. Star point guard LaMelo Ball can’t stay healthy, Miles Bridges has struggled to stay out of the police blotter, and even solid draft picks like Mark Williams and Brandon Miller don’t seem to be making much of a difference.
Charlotte FC reached the postseason but fired its coach anyway, bringing in Dean Smith (not that one) in owner David Tepper’s “Coaching Changes Gone Wild” spinoff from his usual carousel with the Panthers.
The North Carolina Courage sputtered in the playoffs, losing in the first round after spending much of the season at the top of the NWSL standings.
Even the Durham Bulls, winners of back-to-back International League and Triple-A National Championship titles, came up short in 2023.
In summation, as I said, it hasn’t been great.
Enter the Carolina Hurricanes, North State Journal’s Pro Team of the Year for 2023.
After a decade of mediocrity, the team — under new owner Tom Dundon — hired Rod Brind’Amour as coach before the 2018-19 season. The former team captain, who led Carolina its only Stanley Cup in 2006 and has his No. 17 hanging from the rafters of PNC Arena, brought instant credibility with the fan base and in the locker room.
The results on the ice followed, with the Hurricanes making the playoffs in the first five seasons of Brind’Amour’s tenure on the bench. That included a trip to the Eastern Conference final last season, where Carolina was swept by eventual Stanley Cup runner-up Florida.
In a state where you can’t look anywhere without seeing a pro sports team bumbling its way through a season, the Hurricanes are a model of consistency.
That doesn’t mean there haven’t been bumps in the road. The Hurricanes were considered a preseason Stanley Cup favorite this fall but instead looked more like their in-state counterparts to start the 2023-24 season with a 14-12-1 record in their first 27 games.
It was the toughest stretch of Brind’Amour’s coaching career, though he wasn’t ready to tempt fate by declaring it so.
“You never want to say because you just never know what’s around the corner,” Brind’Amour said after the team returned from a six-game road trip that started with losses in four straight but ended with back-to-back road wins. “Yeah, it’s been a tough year for just (those kinds) of unknowns. I think we’ve had a little bit of weird things go on and a little inconsistency — and in all areas at weird times.”
The Hurricanes have seemed to relocate their game, in part because they found consistency at the most important position thanks to rookie goalie Pyotr Kochetkov.
It’s renewed hope that Carolina can reemerge as the Stanley Cup contender everyone thought they were at the start of the season.
It will likely be the last chance this group can do it together. Eight players will be unrestricted free agents at the end of the season, including three — defenseman Brett Pesce and forwards Jordan Martinook and Teuvo Teravainen — who have been with the team since Brind’Amour took control behind the bench.
If Carolina can reach its goal — the franchise’s second Stanley Cup and first in 18 years — we should be right back here again next year.
Actually, given the state of the other professional teams in the state, the Hurricanes’ hold on North Carolina’s team of the year is unlikely to change any time soon.
