The Canes saw their five-game winning streak end in a 6-4 loss to the Chicago Blackhawks. The team didn't have its usual swagger. The penalty kill was uncharacteristically penetrable, and the power play sputtered. The Canes were out of sync and, really, just not very good.
"We didn't play how we want to play, our identity," Dougie Hamilton said. "We need to be better. It's a little bit of a wake-up call for us."
Traveling back to Raleigh in between their two-game set in Chicago and a back-to-back in Columbus allowed the Canes to breathe and press the reset button.
Instead of sitting around in a hotel on Friday, they spent a day off with family at home, away from the rink.
"You're always focused on the next day. … We're not going to dwell on it too much," head coach Rod Brind'Amour said on Thursday. "There's a way we have to play to be successful, and we have to get back to it."
The team was back on the ice at Wake Competition Center on Saturday morning with a chance to course correct and reestablish their identity.
But let's zoom out. The Canes are 6-2-0, and their .750 points percentage is third-best in the Central Division.
It's certainly no time to press the panic button, but the fact that the Canes recognize deficiencies in their game and aren't content with the state of the team underscores the championship mentality that lives and breathes in the locker room.
"The last two games have been just OK. I think this team has a long way to go, but we're certainly on the right direction. We have great leaders on the team," offered Justin Williams, now a member of the front office, when he was asked
his thoughts on the season
. "Once everybody plays catch-up, we're one of the best teams in the league."
The Canes have cleared their early-season COVID-19 hurdles, with Jesper Fast, the last addition to the protocol list, back at practice on Saturday and set to return to the lineup on Sunday.
Fast said he was "climbing the walls" in his room while waiting out a "boring" and "not the most fun" quarantine period.