Rachel Barkley
After 11 days of waiting, the Carolina Hurricanes will open up the Eastern Conference Final against the Montreal Canadiens from their home arena, Lenovo Center, in Raleigh, N.C., Thursday night.
The game is scheduled for 8:00 PM EDT.
Going into the Eastern Conference Finals, special teams will be a note of interest. Of the four teams remaining in the postseason, the Hurricanes rank first in the penalty kill and last in the power play, while the Canadiens rank last in the penalty kill, and third in the power play.
Throughout the season series, the Hurricanes dropped all three games to the Canadiens, failing to play the full sixty minutes in each of them. However, that means very little when it comes to the postseason – when all teams are firing on all cylinders. After all, the Ottawa Senators took the season series against the Hurricanes, as well, and ultimately failed to claim a lead at any point during the postseason.
With that being said, while Montreal has been a strong road team, they have been largely unimpressive in their own barn. With six games having been played in Bell Centre this postseason, they have lost four of them.
However, there is another interesting statistic at play here. Per SDPN Sports’ Executive Producer, Drew Livingstone, teams who face an opponent who has swept the previous round, while having gone to Game 7 in their own round, have won 7-1 since 2000. Nonetheless, the last instance of such a matchup was in 2022, in which the formerly sweeping team flipped the script and took the win.
In Hurricanes history, however, they have only faced the Canadiens twice in the playoffs – first in 2002, and again in 2006. Both times, the Hurricanes won in six games or less, and advanced to the Stanley Cup Finals both years.
In the Crease
By all accounts, Frederik Andersen and Jakub Dobes have been some of the hottest goalies in the playoffs. Andersen leads the league in both save percentage (.950) and goals against average (1.12). Meanwhile, in comparison, as Dobes is notably lacking in those rankings (.910 SV%, 2.52 GAA) , it should be noted that he has faced the most shots in the league, with 399 – nearly twice the amount Andersen has dealt with (201).
Both Andersen and Dobes are expected to be the starting goalies for Game 1.
Projected Carolina Hurricanes Lines
Andrei Svechnikov – Sebastian Aho – Seth Jarvis
Taylor Hall – Logan Stankoven – Jackson Blake
Nikolaj Ehlers – Jordan Staal – Jordan Martinook
William Carrier – Mark Jankowski – Eric Robinson
Defense
Jaccob Slavin – Jalen Chatfield
K’Andre Miller – Sean Walker
Shayne Gostisbehere – Alexander Nikishin
Goaltenders
Frederik Andersen / Brandon Bussi
Projected Montreal Canadiens Lines
Cole Caufield – Nick Suzuki – Juraj Slafkovsky
Alex Newhook – Jake Evans – Ivan Demidov
Alexandre Texier – Phillip Danault – Josh Anderson
Zack Bolduc – Oliver Kapanen – Kirby Dach
Defense
Mike Matheson – Alexandre Carrier
Lane Hutson – Noah Dobson
Arber Xhekaj – Kaiden Guhle
Goaltenders
Jakub Dobes / Jacob Fowler
Special Teams
Carolina Hurricanes power play: 13.5% (12th)
Carolina Hurricanes penalty kill: 95.0% (2nd)
Montreal Canadiens power play: 25.0% (6th)
Montreal Canadiens penalty kill: 74.1% (13th)
Hurricanes Game Notes
After completing their sweep of the Flyers on May 9th, the Hurricanes gained 11 days of rest between games. In doing so, they took the ranking for second-most rest days between rounds in NHL history, and the most in a century. Ironically, the Canadiens hold the record for most, with 12, which was set in the 1919 playoffs. Wild enough, the 1919 Stanley Cup Playoffs ended with a twist, as no winner was declared due to an outbreak of the Spanish Flu. Yikes.
Though the rest of the postseason will only be available to watch via national broadcasts, local play-by-play announcer Mike Maniscalco and analyst Tripp Tracy will continue to call games on the Hurricanes’ radio partner, 99.9 The Fan.
How To Watch
TV: TNT, TruTV, HBO MAX, SN, CBC, TVAS
Radio: 99.9 The Fan
