The Carolina Hurricanes spent Game 1 displaying exactly why they’re among the East’s favorites. After the Ottawa Senators dropped Game 2 in double overtime, they’re left ruing all the opportunities they didn’t take advantage of in a much more evenly played game. Against these Hurricanes, they know you can’t trust luck to do the hard work. And you can’t waste chances.
A quick primer on the Canes. This is their eighth straight season making the playoffs under head coach Rod Brind’Amour, and in every single appearance they’ve won at least one series. That said, they’ve also fallen short of the Cup Final every time, with a total of just one win across three conference final outings. In the regular season, they’ve racked up points with a tried-and-true formula that maximizes shot differential and keeps the puck as far away from their own net as possible. On an average night in the NHL, that work gets you wins on its own, and it’s how the Canes finished fifth-best in the league in goals against even as none of their goalies played above average. But in a best-of-seven against one of the league’s very top teams pushing themselves like there might not be a tomorrow, Carolina’s consistently found itself on the wrong end of talent mismatches.
The good news for the Canes, however, is that this might be the most skilled forward group yet assembled in Raleigh. A centerpiece in Sebastian Aho has been complemented by a new career high in goals and points for Andrei Svechnikov, an impactful free-agent signing in Nikolaj Ehlers, and younger guys who are developing at an exciting pace in Seth Jarvis, Logan Stankoven, and Jackson Blake. I might not pick them in a third-round clash with the Lightning, but the first round against the Senators is a different story—one that looks a lot like that 2-0 Game 1 victory. What I particularly loved, and which I’d been wowed by before, was the way they sucked the life out of Ottawa once they took “the most dangerous lead in hockey,” playing with both hustle and smarts on both ends to absolutely smother even the idea of comeback. It was as grand a statement of belief and purpose as you’ll see at the start of a playoff run, and it’s a testament to the culture Brind’Amour’s cultivated that he’s been able to get so much mileage out of this demanding and difficult style of hockey.
Game 2 on Monday saw the Senators put up much more of a fight, because that’s what good teams do after a loss. Carolina opening up another two-goal lead didn’t deter Ottawa from their mission, and in the middle period, both Drake Batherson and Dylan Cozens connived ways to get the puck past Frederik Andersen. That 2-2 stalemate lasted all the way through the rest of regulation.
Overtime is where the logic of hockey starts to fray at the edges. It’s still good to play smart and work hard, of course. But as players get more tired and the intensity only climbs, the weird little bounces of a tiny rubber disc on a sheet of ice start to feel like they’re dictating the teams’ destiny, rather than the teams dictating the puck’s. In other words, when a glorious chance opens up for you at what could be the end of a grueling, elongated game, you’d better not screw it up. But that’s what Tim Stützle did in the first OT; some deft passing put the would-be winner on his stick, and he just could not slide the victory between Andersen’s pad and the post.
Stützle spent the whole season creating goals out of nothing—the kind of player Carolina’s been craving, basically—but he did the opposite thing here. His miss led to an excruciating sequence where the Canes thought they scored and won, had the goal called back for offside, but received got a penalty shot they couldn’t convert. The game dragged into a second OT, where another Sens miss preceded an important event. This time, it was Michael Amadio who slipped behind the defense to challenge Andersen one-on-one. Everyone could see the end of the game flash before their eyes. But Amadio was blinded by the light at the end of the tunnel. He wasn’t accurate enough as he tried to flip his shot over the goalie’s pads, and the long night continued.
The Canes earned the game-ender and the 2-0 series lead just a few minutes later, dropping Ottawa in an extremely tough spot as the squads fly north. In a 1-1 series, returning to home ice, anything is possible. But instead, the Sens have spent their first two playoff games witnessing a signature performance from their opponent and then suffering through a nightmare of blown chances in a game they let slip through their fingers. It’s bad enough when the Hurricanes hit you with the haymaker. It’s worse when you don’t even punch back.