The Result Under The Result
A double sweep to open the NHL playoffs hasn't happened in more than 40 years. The Carolina Hurricanes handled the Ottawa Senators and Philadelphia Flyers in lightning-quick fashion, and now they look primed to finally win a Stanley Cup.
The road gets tougher from here. A potential matchup with the Colorado Avalanche would give us the best-on-best Stanley Cup the hockey world craves.
The matchup already has enough history; the job is to keep the reading list shorter than the tension.
Detractors have been quick to point to underwhelming competition in the first two rounds, especially a Flyers team that looked young and rattled. That discounts too much of what Carolina does to teams when they're at their best: bringing offences to a screeching halt.
The Hurricanes' defensive numbers through the first two rounds are staggering. Over eight games against the Senators and the Flyers, Carolina won the scoring battle at even strength by 10 goals. Opponent power plays scored just one goal over that same stretch; the goal differential for Carolina's penalty kill was minus-1.
The Useful Context
Six even-strength goals against in eight games is remarkable and in line with what we witnessed from this Hurricanes team all season. It's simply very difficult to even get the puck into Carolina's zone, and when teams do, it's another task entirely to create scoring chances from the dangerous areas of the ice.
Carolina's personnel play tightly within structure and are exceptional at keeping opposing forwards on the perimeter. The defensive zone has become something of a hockey Bermuda Triangle.
Watch a Carolina game and one thing becomes crystal clear: this team will forecheck you into oblivion, and inexperienced teams can struggle mightily against the pressure. One of the parts not lost on me from the first two rounds was how many quality forwards from both Ottawa and Philadelphia found zero space to operate against Carolina's vaunted defence.
If you look at the forward groups of both teams and compare their shot volumes from the regular season versus their head-to-head matchup with Carolina, there is a staggering drop-off from most. Skaters like Brady Tkachuk, Drake Batherson, Travis Konecny, and Trevor Zegras were bottled up. The only two consequential skaters who outperformed were Tim Stutzle and Christian Dvorak, and that outperformance is only a function of shot volume.
The Part Still Unclear
Sprinkle some great goaltending behind all of it through Frederik Andersen and his.950 save percentage, and you can see why Carolina has breezed through the competition.
Ask anyone in the Hurricanes organization and they'll tell you the job isn't finished. Few teams have more postseason wins than Carolina over the past decade, and yet they still haven't raised the Stanley Cup since 2006. There's been a tortured history there of late, especially in the Eastern Conference Final. Carolina has been here two of the past three years, with both of those bids ending unceremoniously against a better Florida Panthers team.
But those Panthers have long been vanquished, and whether it's the Buffalo Sabres or Montreal Canadiens as their third-round opponent, Carolina will be the favourite to advance.
Is this the year Rod Brind'Amour's team finally gets it done?