At the 19-game mark of the 2017-18 regular season, the Carolina Hurricanes had won five of seven and sat just one point out of a playoff spot with two games in hand.
The nine games that followed were heartbreaking. A team that was seemingly catching their stride suddenly wasn’t so good when their go-to trio wasn’t scoring three goals a game and their established elite goal scorer experienced a similarly untimely dry spell. The result of that epic collapse was a 2-4-3 stretch in which they weren’t able to win a single game in regulation.
The Hurricanes are three games into a potential season-defining road trip.