The Carolina Hurricanes are rolling into the State Fair stretch with a spotless road start to the 2026-27 season, and the next eight days should tell us plenty about how real that momentum is. Five games.
Four Canadian stops. One trip-ending date in St.
Louis. It’s the kind of road swing that can sharpen a team or expose it.
There’s something worth watching at every stop, but each matchup also brings one central question. From netminding uncertainty in Winnipeg to a familiar matchup in Vancouver, here’s the storyline attached to each game on the Hurricanes’ western run.
Winnipeg opens the trip with a real curveball: what does this Jets team look like without Connor Hellebuyck? The offseason conversation around his trade request has lingered into the regular season, and the Hurricanes remain one of the teams interested in landing him. Hellebuyck has said he wants to return, but the locker room doesn’t sound eager to go that direction.
In the meantime, Winnipeg turned to Stuart Skinner to handle the crease and claimed Clay Stevenson off waivers from the Capitals to back him up. Skinner has done most of the work so far, going 3-0-2 with a .906 save percentage and a 2.76 GAA through five games.
He also has recent history against Carolina, facing the Hurricanes five times last season - once with Edmonton and four times with Pittsburgh - and the Canes scored 18 goals across those games while winning three of them, including two in overtime. It’s still unclear who gets the start, but Skinner would make sense based on that track record.
Calgary brings the back-to-back question, and for Carolina, that’s been a good one so far this season. Last year, the Hurricanes played 15 back-to-backs, tied for the seventh-most in the NHL, and they went 7-7-1 in the second game with nearly 3.50 goals allowed per night. That put them at a .500 point percentage, which ranked 19th out of 32 teams.
This season, though, they’ve handled both of their back-to-backs perfectly, and both wins came against the Flyers in Philadelphia. They’re the only team in the league with a perfect record in multiple back-to-back sets.
The Flames, meanwhile, have already had one back-to-back and dropped the second game 6-1 to the Kraken on opening weekend. Carolina looked sharp in Philadelphia.
The question is whether they can do it again across the border.
Vancouver is the one rematch on the trip, and the first meeting between these teams was all Hurricanes. On October 8 in Raleigh, Andrei Svechnikov scored twice on the power play during a three-goal first period, and then Logan Stankoven took over with a natural hat trick. He scored short-handed, on the power play, and at even strength in a 7-2 Carolina win.
Now the Canucks get Carolina in their first home game after a six-game road trip of their own, and that trip has gone badly. After losing in Raleigh, Vancouver fell in overtime to both New York teams, New Jersey, and Florida, with a stop in Tampa Bay still ahead before the Hurricanes arrive.
The Canucks have been outscored 23-9 on the trip, and three of those five losses came by at least three goals. Their offense has also cooled off after its hot start against Edmonton, scoring two goals or fewer in each of its last six games.
Carolina should like that setup, even if Vancouver has managed to produce a few strange games at home in recent years.
Edmonton is the loudest test on paper, because the top end of that roster still bends games. For a moment Tuesday, Sebastian Aho was tied for the league scoring lead.
Then the Oilers played. Connor McDavid now leads the NHL in assists with 14 and points with 18, while Evan Bouchard is pacing all defensemen with six goals and 15 points.
Leon Draisaitl is in the mix too, with five goals and seven assists, and Vasily Podkolzin leads the team in goals with seven. The depth behind that group has taken a hit because of injuries, and the drop after Podkolzin is steep.
Even so, there isn’t a clean answer for how to stop the elite names at the top of the lineup. Edmonton also gives up its share at the other end, which leaves room to attack, but the Oilers have shown the same basic approach for years: trust the firepower to cover the cracks.
The trip ends in St. Louis, and that’s the one that might carry the most awkward history for Carolina.
Last season, the Blues were one of only three teams to sweep the Hurricanes. Montreal and Vegas were the other two, and Carolina eventually beat both in the Eastern Conference Finals and the Stanley Cup Final, respectively.
St. Louis was different.
The Hurricanes scored just one goal in two meetings and were shut out in St. Louis.
That shutout came the night after the controversial loss to the Detroit Red Wings, which gave Carolina back-to-back losses for the final time last season. Jimmy Snuggerud was a big part of the damage, scoring three of St.
Louis’ six goals and netting the late winner in Raleigh in March. Whether that makes the Blues a true problem team is still up for debate, but a rough finish to this trip would make the case stronger.
The final stop could decide the tone of the whole journey. Depending on how the first four games go, this one might say whether the trip was a success or a stumble. Either way, solving Joel Hofer or Jordan Binnington would be the place to start, and the Blues’ updated lineup - with Mason McTavish and Connor McMichael added in - gives Carolina one more serious test before heading home.
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