The Conference Finals are set. After the Montreal Canadiens beat the Buffalo Sabres in a thrilling Game 7 on Monday night, we are left with just four contenders for the Stanley Cup.
The group notably includes the consensus favourites from each conference when the tournament started: the favoured Carolina Hurricanes in the East, and the Presidents' Trophy-winning Colorado Avalanche in the West.
Let's preview both matchups, starting in the Eastern Conference.
Montreal Canadiens vs. Carolina Hurricanes
What to know
This may be the ultimate rest-versus-rust series we have ever witnessed in the NHL. The Carolina Hurricanes made tidy work of both the Ottawa Senators and Philadelphia Flyers in a double sweep.
Their close-out game against Philadelphia was on May 9, which means they'll have a 12-day layoff between the end of their second round series and the first game of the Eastern Conference Final.
Coupled with how short the series was against Ottawa, Carolina's rest might be unprecedented — the team will have completed a 26-day stretch in which they played just five games!
The Montreal advantage
You won't find a team with better regular-season results against the Hurricanes than the Canadiens. We're only talking about three games, but all three games came after the turn of the calendar year and Montreal won all three in regulation, outscoring Carolina 15-8 (+7) in the process.
Even expected goals — blind to the performance of the respective goaltenders — were in favour of Montreal (50.5 per cent).
Most encouragingly, if you're a Canadiens fan, a lot of that scoring success was through the big guns at the top of the lineup. The combination of Cole Caufield, Juraj Slafkovsky, and Nick Suzuki had eight goals in these three games.
Simply put: there's credible evidence Montreal can skate with Carolina and then some, in stark contrast to most of the teams around the league.
The Carolina advantage
Do not discount just how lethal this Hurricanes team is defensively. The Rod Brind'Amour era has been defined by an unrelenting forecheck and a pace of play that stifles opponents.
In the last five seasons, they rank second in goals conceded (all situations) and first in expected goals conceded.
What's different now is goaltender Frederik Andersen has been on a heater this postseason (95.0 per cent stop rate; +15 goals saved versus expected), a monstrous step up from what we saw from Andersen and Brandon Bussi in the regular season.
Couple great goaltending with Carolina's ability to protect the most dangerous areas of the defensive zone, and you have a team that's very difficult to score on.
Player to Watch
It's the small but mighty Logan Stankoven. Lost in Carolina's double sweep was that much of the work was not completed by their top line of Andrei Svechnikov, Sebastian Aho, and Seth Jarvis, who were relatively quiet through the first two rounds.
It's been Stankoven (playing with Taylor Hall and Jackson Blake) who have been doing nearly all of the damage. Stankoven has seven goals in eight games and against the likes of Ottawa and Philadelphia, this trio won the goal differential battle 11-1 (+10).
Stankoven was part of the colossal Mikko Rantanen trade between Dallas and Carolina last year, and he has fit in seamlessly with this Hurricanes group.
Pick
I don't want to overweight the regular season results, but it's clear Montreal's talent can compete with Carolina.