It appears as though Cam Ward needs to be flawless. In his last two games, he was exactly that for all but 12 seconds, and it cost his team two points as a result. Ward stopped all 40 shots in a win against Buffalo on Tuesday, but his Carolina Hurricanes fell 3-1 to the Maple Leafs on Wednesday night. In that game, he stopped 16 of 19 shots, but was also utterly useless for a brief moment in the second period when he let in a pair of weak goals a dozen seconds apart.

Earning a playoff spot will really only signal the start of Carolina’s problems. They’re already playing high energy games, and Ward currently leads all NHL goaltenders in games played, shots and goals allowed. Add the fact that a first-round series will likely be against the first-seeded team in the East; it will probably be a long one if Carolina manages to win at all. By that time, they’ll certainly be running on fumes.

Ward isn’t Carolina’s problem right now. In fact, in his last five games, he has a .929 save percentage and 2.02 goals against average. It’s the skaters who have been coming up short. Before their lone goal against Toronto, they had failed on 28-straight power play opportunities. Also, only five skaters, including team captain Eric Staal and All-Star rookie Jeff Skinner have more than 40 points this season. The rest are averaging less than a point per game. That lack of depth is not going to cut it against the better teams in the league.

The Hurricanes have fallen out of a playoff spot in the East, having gone 4-5-1 in their last 10 games. They currently sit ninth, two points back of Buffalo and two points ahead of both Toronto and Atlanta. With 11 games left on the schedule, Ward is going to have to turn it up to 11 to keep his team’s hopes alive down through mid-April. If they manage to take the final playoff spot away from Buffalo, it may cost them dearly with an extremely exhausted goaltender.