The Carolina Hurricanes had a chance to make the playoffs but lost two big games at home over the last week – one Saturday night to Tampa Bay by a 6-2 score.

News & Observer sports reporter and columnist Luke DeCock is already calling for Hurricanes coach Paul Maurice to be fired.

He wrote, “Of all the times the Carolina Hurricanes have narrowly missed the playoffs, this will go down as the most uncomfortable. Twice, they had their destiny in their hands. Twice, they tossed it away.”

He said that someone must answer for that. “Surely it will be coach Paul Maurice, who hasn’t taken a team he has coached for a full season to the NHL playoffs since 2002 and who cannot account for a loss Saturday that cost the franchise millions of dollars,” he wrote.

He wrote that while Maurice is a good man and a good coach, the past two non-playoff seasons are reasons to let him go. “Saturday’s flat-line with everything on the line defies explanation,” DeCock wrote.

For his part, Maurice said “(GM) Jim (Rutherford) will make his assessment. I’m very proud of the way this team performed this year in the situations it faced — the youth, the schedule. I think in a lot of ways we’ll look back at this as a great year.”

To read DeCock’s piece, please click here.