Fear the Sightless Eye!

10-1-2 in March. 11 straight home wins. An 8 game winning streak. Clinching a playoff spot for the first time since '06.

These are some of the accomplishments the Canes have put up in the last 5 weeks. After playing .500 hockey for the better part of the year, and being on the cusp of being in/out of the playoffs, the Canes have vaulted 4 spots in the Eastern Conference standings and now stand at 5th. So what happened?

So far it seems like the stars have aligned and everything has just fallen into place. The only different part of the team that has changed since February is the addition of Erik Cole. But by no means is he the only reason this team is playing better.

Erik Cole scored in 6 of his first 8 games with Carolina this season, but has only 1 point in his last 6. However, Carolina won all six of those games in which he didn't score. If we look at his arrival differently, you can see another trend.

Before Cole came back to Carolina, Sergei Samsonov played on Eric Staal's line. Now, he's been pushed to the third line along with Brind'Amour. This has increased Brind'Amour's production significantly. Roddy's put up 17 points in the last 14 games. It also seems that the Captain has finally recovered from his knee injury that happened last year, and plagued him for most of this season.

Another major contributor has been Cam Ward, who seems to have found his 2006 Playoff form. Ward has been spectacular in net for the Canes for the past month of two. As of Feb 24, Ward had a season save % of .908. Not horrible. As of today, his season save % is .917. To achieve that he's had to have numbers higher than .925 in just a month. What makes this even more astounding is that the defense hasn't been helping out Ward all that much. In the past 15 games, the Canes have allowed 30 or more shots in 12 of them. 3 of those had 40 shots or more. Ward has also played in 26 straight games. If Brodeur is his idol, then he is on the right path to emulate him.

So apart from luck and the Hockey Gods' intervention, one has to assume that coaching is to blame for the success as of late, considering so many pieces coming together. I was a critic of Paul Maurice when he first came back to Raleigh in December. However, it seems that he and Francis have really pulled the team together and have made huge strides.

Tonight, the Canes host the Islanders, the worst team in the league. This is one of those games where you're not sure if the Canes are going to take the night off, or just completely blow out the other team. I've been having bad feelings about the past few games, and each time the Canes have surprised me. We'll see how it goes tonight at 7.