Hurricanes embrace slogan — ‘Collectively’ — that’s as much inside joke as rallying cry

The towels on the seats Monday night were emblazoned with the words “Never Compromise,” words also spoken by Justin Williams at the end of the Carolina Hurricanes’ postseason hype video. That’s a marketing slogan, to sell tickets and attach as a social-media hashtag, for the fans.

Inside the dressing room, the players are rallying around a different concept. They chose this one themselves, put it on the back of their playoff workout T-shirts, with the hope that it takes on the same deep meaning that “Whatever It Takes” did in 2006.

It’s not nearly as catchy as Peter Laviolette’s chosen message on the way to the Stanley Cup or even the team’s own business strategy, anodyne to the extreme, but it says a lot about the way this group views itself.

Collectively.

That’s it. That’s the slogan. That’s the word. That’s the message the Hurricanes have chosen to rally around this postseason, the motivational core around which they hope to build a long, historic campaign.

It’s as much an inside joke as it is a rallying cry, a knowing wink at the perception of the team and the players it has lost over the course of this season, something the Hurricanes faced and, now, embraced.

It isn’t much. But it says a lot.

“We’ve had a couple, I want to say, jokes, but our line’s just ‘Collectively,’” Hurricanes captain Jordan Staal said. “Which has been kind of a little bit of a joke going throughout the year. We’ve said it quite a bit. It actually kind of rings true to how we play as a group and the stuff that’s gone on this year. We win collectively, and that’s what we’re focusing on.”

It’s easy to dismiss this stuff as pop-psyche posturing, but it can matter. Laviolette believed strongly that giving a team a theme could be a unifying force, right down to the “Whatever It Takes” coin buried at center ice at what was then the RBC Center, at least until Edmonton’s Ryan Smyth chipped it out, too late for the Oilers. Through the twists and turns of that postseason, the message did seem to resonate, even to the end as Erik Cole had so many CT scans he probably still glows in the dark to come back from a broken neck to play the final two games of the finals.

Whatever it took.

So while the fancy marketing campaign narrated by their former captain revolves around them, inside the dressing room, the message this postseason is simpler. Clearer. Nearer and dearer.

Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour didn’t want to discuss that slogan Monday, preferring it filter out on its own, from the players and the gear they wear. But the meaning is clear. There’s no single Hurricanes player who can carry this team on his own. They can only do it together. They hear it. They know it.

They lack the television-friendly star power of a Connor McDavid or a Nathan MacKinnon or an Alex Ovechkin. Their best postseason trophy candidate, Jordan Staal, has zero chance to beat out Patrice Bergeron for the Selke. They lost two desperately needed goal-scorers during the season, in Max Pacioretty and Andrei Svechnikov. There isn’t even a clear starter at goalie, where Antti Raanta got the call Monday but Frederik Andersen will surely get a shot soon.

But it’s a formula that has worked for the Hurricanes all season, and there’s no reason to change now.

If the Hurricanes are going to survive and advance, they’re going to have to do it collectively. There’s no other way.

As motivational slogans go, it doesn’t exactly stir the blood. But it’s hard to imagine one more fitting for a group that has no other choice than to be more than the sum of its parts.

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