RALEIGH, N.C. -- Another season ended for the Carolina Hurricanes, and another round of exit interviews commenced where the players were forced to search for answers.
The Hurricanes have now missed the playoffs every season dating back to 2009. This season marked six straight years, in fact, of the "what went wrong?" types of questions. And they're often asked to be the voices of optimism as the team moves ahead.
That's been easier said than done for some of them, who are growing visibly frustrated.
Three remain from that group that made the playoffs in 2009 -- goalie Cam Ward, captain Eric Staal and defenseman Patrick Dwyer. Zach Boychuk was there as well, but he got sent down to the Charlotte Checkers and wasn't present for the latest post-mortem.
"It's never easy coming to these exit interviews and trying to explain what went wrong this year to miss the playoffs, because that's the most important thing," Ward said.
"It's extremely frustrating. It's the sixth time I've been sitting here talking about it. It stings and it hurts," Dwyer said. "Guys want to be there."
Perhaps no one has taken it harder than Staal, though, who has been in Raleigh since 2003-04. He was with them when they won the Stanley Cup back in 2006, as was Ward. They're the only two left who were.
"Obviously, he's been here for a long time. He's been through some great ups and some really tough downs. I do respect the way he carries himself every day and what he does in this room and for this team and what he's done for the city," Eric's younger brother Jordan said.
"I really hope for myself and the players in this room that we can get him into the playoffs -- obviously when he's in the playoffs, he's done some damage and played some really good hockey. I want to be a part of that and he does too."
Staal and Ward in particular understand what the local fans were like when the team was good. They've slowly trickled out of the building as apathy set in over time, and there have been games this past season that sounded like the Hurricanes were on the road with all the visiting fans in attendance.
North Carolina in general, and the Raleigh area in particular, are rife for relocations, and the state is growing more and more full of people who were born elsewhere. Those people often have attachment to opposing teams, and will show up and fill significant portions of the building.
But when the Hurricanes were good, the locals were out in full force and it was not only a fun environment to play in -- it was an intimidating one.
That's gone now.
When asked what his message to the fans would be, Staal -- fiercely loyal to this franchise, but a realist nonetheless -- sighed deeply. "That's a tough question," he said.
"It's been frustrating, no question. I think you saw this year the building not as full as it has been in years past, but that's to be expected with how many years we've missed the playoffs in a row. Now, it's about building back up to get those people back in the building and get our team back to the playoffs."
It is about that, of course. But all this disappointment has been hard on the elder Staal, whose little brother was brought in to play alongside him last season. The younger Staal missed the first few months of the season with a broken leg, and the Hurricanes looked like a different team with him (20-19-7) than without him (10-22-4).
In previous exit interviews, even the older players might bring up injuries. The general manager and previous administration certainly did. Or they could bring up how difficult it was to learn a brand-new system under head coach Bill Peters, which they did.
But the older players understand how hollow those types of reasons ring.
"Obviously everybody has injuries. I think there were eight new coaches this year. So there's plenty of teams that -- you can do it," Ron Hainsey, the second-oldest player on the team, said.
"We were certainly slow out of the gate, I think, for a couple reasons -- injuries and a new staff, everybody getting caught up on what they're doing without having to think about it.
"Our play in the first six games compared to the next 76 was greatly different. Unfortunately when you start 0-6, that's a big problem. But that's not the only reason."
It's not the only reason. And there's going to take a lot of time and effort to fix things moving forward, but there are two things that make even some of the beleaguered older players feel optimism: Peters and Ron Francis, the first-year GM.
Much of what's happened over the last few years has been under the previous administration, and a lot of what's being undone right now -- slowly, but surely -- will take time. The Hurricanes could raze it all to the ground and build from scratch this offseason, or they could try to make some small changes and hope for the best. Either way they choose to go, many of the players say they have faith in the decision-making process.
"I think with Ron and the management staff and Bill with his staff, we've got a direction where they want to go and they're going to get to. Hopefully over the summer, like I said, we can do some things and strengthen our team," Eric Staal said.
"We've shown flashes throughout the season of a team that when healthy and when playing right, we can be a playoff team. But overall, there are still things that need to be fixed and things that need to get better. That's pretty evident by our record."
The players don't pretend to understand the business side of it. But what they see every day in Peters has been enough to make them feel good about the future.
Peters' first year as an NHL head coach was not as successful as he would have liked, but he understood the challenges that awaited him in Raleigh when he took the job. Francis understands, too.
So he gave Peters all the freedom he needed to build a culture -- both on the ice and off -- and Peters has delivered.
"There were changes all over. We changed our system. We changed our locker room. He tried to build a foundation in the room where guys were together and willing to battle for each other," Patrick Dwyer said.
"Throughout the year, we did that. We became a tight-knit group in here. Guys liked coming to the rink. You're going to lose some games, but you still have to come to the rink and enjoy what you do. He laid that foundation."
The team was learning the system at the beginning of the season, and in training camp. Now, they all feel like they'll have a head start in that they already understand what Peters wants.
It hasn't been an easy transition for either party, but the players know it's all for the best and will pay off longterm.
"Some people might not be able to tell but as a player you can watch and you can see just little things off draws, little stuff that you can tell we're well-coached. He's a great coach and he's done a lot of good things this year," Jordan Staal said.
"Obviously he's learning his personnel at the beginning of the season and understanding what he has and what he needs to do, and everyone was trying to learn the system. That's not easy to do. Towards the end, we started playing more consistent games and we were in every match. We didn't let any freebies go and we played hard."
Peters demanded that. On more than one occasion in the postgame, he didn't hesitate to rip his team if he felt the effort wasn't where it needed to be. At one point, he said his team had "too many passengers."
He wasn't afraid to hold players accountable via benching, either. And he did a lot to manage egos, like rotating primary goalie Cam Ward and backup Anton Khudobin as best he could. Both played well all year.
"The coaches did an awesome job this year. I thought you saw our team play with a lot of structure. That begins with Coach Peters," Ward said.
"When I think of Coach, you think of an emotional guy who's very passionate about the game. I think that carries over to the players. He takes his job very seriously. That's what you want out of your coach. It's unfortunate that we fell short this year but moving forward, we're definitely heading in the right direction."
There was one thing that was never going to be fixed by anything Peters could do or say, though -- a lack of goal-scoring.
The Hurricanes finished the season averaging just 2.23 goals per game (27th in the NHL). That was in spite of attempting 30.8 shots per game (12th).
Improvements were made in things like shots against (the Hurricanes finished third in that category) and penalty kill (fourth). But those defensive improvements didn't matter much in the seemingly endless parade of games that the Hurricanes lost 2-1, 3-2 or even 1-0. One-goal games where just one more goal would've made the difference, but they couldn't get it across.
"It seemed like the lack of scoring this year was a bit of a problem...it was getting into the gritty areas to score goals. As a team, we could probably get a little bit more grittier in that department," Ward said. "But when you look at this group, especially the core of the young kids, it's still very promising. It was good to see them take another step."
The youth of the team is promising. Four of the top five in points this season are 25 years of age or younger. The Hurricanes were equally excited about some of the Charlotte Checkers players, who had some nice stints at the NHL level.
Those players, plus Peters -- and whatever moves the team might make in the off-season -- were enough for Dwyer to tell the fans to, as he put it, "hang in there".
"I know it's frustrating and it's been a long time, but we're frustrated too. We're going in the right direction and we're laying the foundation for a team that is not just going to make the playoffs every other year here or there," Dwyer said.
"You're building the foundation for a team that's in the playoffs every year. That's where we want to be and that's where we're heading."
