What We Learned: Inevitability coming for Carolina

A lot of people thought it would happen in the first round.

Andrei Svechnikov, who was second on the Hurricanes in goals per game this season, went through season-ending knee surgery in late March and almost immediately the Carolina offense hit a wall.

Before his injury, the Hurricanes averaged 2.71 goals per 60 at 5-on-5, a number that was good for eighth in the league. Really strong. After he got hurt, that scoring rate dropped to 2.47 per 60, 19th in the league. In all situations, the before-and-after was even worse, dropping the solid 12th-ranked offense to an abysmal 24th.

Now, y'know, the Hurricanes are an elite "systems" team and when you want to talk how effective they are at creating chances for themselves and that sort of thing, it has to be said that while they took a hit with Svec