The red-hot Carolina Hurricanes ended this past regular season atop the Metropolitan Division, and are slated to take on their divisional competition in the New York Islanders. New York earned the first wild card seed when the Hurricanes defeated the Panthers in regulation in both clubs’ final game of the season.
While it’s far from a rivalry, this first-round NHL Playoff series carries one of the league’s most precious serendipitous gems: both the Hurricanes and the Islanders have a player named Sebastian Aho on their roster, and they once scored less than a minute apart.
Coincidences aside, here’s what to expect from the first-round NHL Playoff matchup between the New York Islanders and the Carolina Hurricanes.
Carolina Hurricanes vs New York Islanders: By the numbers
This playoff matchup has only happened once before, when the Canes swept the Islanders in the second round in the 2019 postseason. The regular season series also favored the Hurricanes, who won three of the four matchups this year.
The Hurricanes will also have home ice advantage, as they finished with a 52-21-9 record to secure the top spot in the Metropolitan Division. They ended the season with a +53 goal differential and went 5-5-0 in their final ten games. Their final regular season game was a 6-4 win over the Florida Panthers.
On the other side, the Isles also ended their season on a positive note, hammering the Montreal Canadiens 4-2 to punch their playoff ticket. They ended the season with a 42-31-9 record alongside a +21 goal differential, and went 5-4-1 in their closing ten games.
Crossing the blue line
Both the Canes and the Isles are built with solid defensive corps, with Adam Pelech and pending unrestricted free agent Scott Mayfield playing reliable, stay-at-home hockey for the Islanders, while Brett Pesce and Jaccob Slavin are the workhorses on the Canes blue line. Booming blue line shots come courtesy of Noah Dobson for New York and veteran Brent Burns for Carolina, and support in the form of Ryan Pulock and Brady Skjei, respectively, add up to a playoff matchup that will certainly be defense-forward.
These clubs have two of the most solid defense corps in the league, and are notably good at shutting down opposition offense, meaning it’s reasonable to expect that a ton of these playoff contests could end up as tight games with little to no room for defensive error, as either team could capitalize on any defensive mistake and not make the opportunity back. Both teams are notoriously terrible at finding the back of the net, relying heavily on defense to win games.
Banged up stars
Heading into the playoff matchup, both clubs have question marks surrounding notable names on their rosters. In New York, the team’s star in Mathew Barzal has been out of the lineup since mid-February. The Isles announced that Barzal will, in fact, be able to suit up for the first game of the series, but they have to hope that he will not have any rust to shake off. They’ll need him to slot in immediately and recharge Bo Horvat’s game, as well as revitalize a power play that has been virtually useless without him.
Andrei Svechnikov has spent quite a bit of time on the IR list for the Canes, after he underwent season-ending knee surgery and, unfortunately for the his team, he will also miss the playoffs. He, like Barzal, carried a bunch of the offensive workload for his team, and losing him was a big blow to the Canes’ offense. Before he went down, Svechnikov had 55 points in 64 games. Virtually all of the goal-scoring pressure is now shouldered onto Sebastion Aho and blue liner Brent Burns.
In Svechnikov’s absence, Sebastian Aho (who missed a few games due to injury himself) tallied 36 goals and 31 assists for 67 points in in 75 games. Martin Necas had 71 points (28G, 43A) in 82 games. For New York, Brock Nelson led the charge with 75 points (36G, 39A) in 82 games, and Horvat had 16 points in 30 games with his new team, though he has a total of 38 goals on the campaign. Barzal had 51 points in 58 games before he suffered his injury.
Playoff woes for both the Carolina Hurricanes and New York Islanders
The Islanders missed the playoffs last year, but went to the final four in the Stanley Cup Playoffs in both the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 campaigns, losing both series to the Tampa Bay Lightning (who eventually won the Stanley Cup in both instances). Carolina has finished in the top of the league in the regular season for the past few season, but the club has seen its own form of playoff struggles: while they’ve qualified for the postseason for five straight seasons, they never make it very far. Most recently, they lost to the New York Rangers in seven games in the second round last year.
Hurricanes-Islanders prediction: Hurricanes in 7.
The 2023 NHL Playoffs begin Monday, April 17.
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