In the voice of Rose from Titanic, “It’s been eleven days…”
The Carolina Hurricanes finished off the Philadelphia Flyers on Saturday, May 9th and haven’t played a hockey game that counts since. Their opponent the Montreal Canadiens just played their fourteenth game of the postseason on Monday. In fact since Carolina completed the sweep against Philadelphia, Montreal has played five games.
There are a lot of times when the word “Unprecedented” is thrown out and done so in a hyperbolic manner, but this
matchup is exactly what is meant by the word. Never before has a team in Carolina had this much off time between series, and that was after they had a week off from the end of the Ottawa series to the Philadelphia one. It’ll also be the first time this exact scenario has happened where one team has played the minimum number of games while the other had played the maximum as Montreal needed seven games to vanquish Tampa Bay as well.
So of course what’s the topic on everyone’s mind? “Rust versus Rest.”
Well, besides the fact that the Hurricanes have won all of one Eastern Conference Final game since 2006.
If you need primers on the series, as always there are wonderful ones out there:
- Hurricanes.com preview from Walt Ruff and Peter Dewar
- Ryan Henkel from The Hockey News Talks about five ways the Canes can advance
- Cory Lavalette from The North State Journal
- The Athletic’s Preview from Shayna Goldman, Sean Gentille and Dom Luszczyszyn (gift link)
- SDPN’s series preview—aka one from a bunch of Canadian Maple Leafs fans
All the previews essentially boil down to the same premise: whose style is going to win out over the seven game series? Montreal will be looking to take chances and be willing to live with mistakes as they play to the strength of their team. Meanwhile the Hurricanes will hope their depth and ability to roll out all 18 skaters who dress will continue just a punishing style that wears you down and chokes the life out of you. Both teams are hoping the magic that their goalies have shown in the postseason will continue, although Jakub Dobeš has had flashes where he’s not been able to bail out Canadien mistakes like Frederik Andersen has.
That last point, honestly, is where the advantage in the series may really lie. No one is going to doubt that the Hurricanes have the best blue line from top to bottom of this series and perhaps of any remaining team—yes even Colorado, especially ff Makar isn’t 100% the rest of the way. Andersen has not been perfect, but there are more instances where the defense of the Hurricanes is there with him to help bail him out more than on the other side of the ice. Andersen isn’t asked to do all the work of stopping the other team by himself, while a lot of times Dobeš is. Montreal won both Game 7’s thanks to his work because they were thoroughly dominated by both teams, the puck just bounced their way.
The other thing that will be interesting to see here is road versus home. The Hurricanes are perhaps one of the only teams left to get a real home ice advantage, but that didn’t help them in the last two Conference Finals they played and Montreal isn’t going to be intimidated after going 6-2 so far on the road this season. That said, it can be argued that the Lenovo Center crowd is one they have yet to face and Brind’Amour’s style makes the last change you get at home a true advantage that other teams no longer really get to take advantage of.
On Carolina’s side eyes are going to be on two lines: the one centered by Sebastian Aho with Seth Jarvis and Andrei Svechnikov, and the other centered by Logan Stankoven with Taylor Hall and Jackson Blake. The latter has been, by far, the best line for the Hurricanes and arguably the best line in the NHL playoffs. But the former is the line that people are saying needs to get going in order for the Hurricanes to win. Right now that line barely has any points at even strength, and while they’ve also been really good at shutting down the opposing line, they clearly know they need to step up.
That’s ultimately where this long break may be the best thing for Carolina. A lot of looking back on how teams have done coming back from a long break fails to account for a big difference in this year’s schedule: The Olympic Break. Aho, Jarvis, Jaccob Slavin, Andersen, and Nicolaj Ehlers all weren’t able to take advantage of the three week break during the season as they were over in Milan playing for their countries. While Ehlers and Andersen got a little extra time due to Denmark being eliminated earlier, the other three played all the way up to the last weekend and jumped right back into the action after the Break was over. Thanks to the two sweeps they’ve gotten a total of 17 days off of not playing games between the two series, and that acts as their Olympic Break.
That’s the macro picture. For this game, tonight, don’t expect any changes from what each team rolled out on the ice the last time you saw them. Andersen and Dobeš will be in the crease, and the lines will be the same for both squads. Montreal wasn’t even doing a full morning skate with their media availability happening at the team hotel, meanwhile Lavalette summarized the Canes’ this morning pretty succinctly:
So that’s that. If you’re going to Lenovo tonight, for the love of all that you find holy pre-pay for your parking as the on-site price has jumped to $75 for this round, while buying in advance is “only” $53. The weather appears to be breaking to where rain will hold off until later, so the tailgates should be fun, just keep an eye on the weather apps and the skies.
If you aren’t going to be there, here’s where you can catch the action:
Time: 8 PM Eastern
TV: TNT and TruTV will have the action in the US with Kenny Albert handling play-by-play, Eddie Olczyk doing color from up top, Brian Boucher between the benches, and Jackie Redmond handling off-ice interviews. Also note that the NHL on TNT Face-Off pre-show will not only be an hour long, beginning at 7 PM Eastern, but that they will be on-site in Raleigh. Liam McHugh hosts while Wayne Gretzky, Henrik Lundqvist, Anson Carter, and Paul Bissonnette will be at the desk.
Streaming Video: HBO Max will have you covered on the streaming side, you may have to look under “sports” to find it.
Radio: This is where you can listen to Mike Maniscalco and Tripp Tracy call the action for the rest of the playoffs. The pregame on 99.9 The Fan starts at 7PM and runs for 60 minutes. At 8PM the Hurricanes Radio Network (consisting of 99.9, 730 The Game in Charlotte, ESPN New Bern 107.5/1490, and ESPN Greenville 107.5/1570). You will also be able stream this call through 99.9 on your smart device, app, or the Carolina Hurricanes app—and it’s not geolocked.
Odds (per Fanduel): Hurricanes -205 Moneyline, Puckline Hurricanes -1.5 at +128/Canadiens +168 Moneyline, Puckline +1.5 at -158, O/U 5.5 (-122 Over/+100 Under)
