Meet the new round, same as the old round. The first two games of the Carolina Hurricanes' series with the Flyers have looked eerily similar to the Canes' first two against the Senators to start the playoffs. In Game 1, the top seed in the East thoroughly dominated their enemies in a shutout win. In Game 2, the underdog had their chances to seize a critical victory but ended up losing 3-2 in overtime. The Hurricanes' 2-0 lead, against a Flyers squad that might be the weakest link of all the second-round contestants, means fans are allowed to start figuring how they might match up with Montreal or Buffalo in a conference final. If they're thinking about that, they might as well wonder if this is finally the year that Rod Brind'Amour's boys slay their conference demons to earn a shot at the Cup.
Only the Lightning and the Avalanche own longer active playoff streaks than Carolina, who've made it to every postseason since 2019. But Tampa and Colorado have hoisted Stanley, and the Hurricanes, in all their appearances, have only tallied one lonely conference final game victory across three trips, for an overall record of 1-12. Why do they keep stalling out? Like with any NHL playoff question, you can blame some bad luck. But it's also true that the Canes are a team that gets their results by outworking lesser squads and sticking to a smart game plan, minimizing variance. When they've run into starrier rosters like the older Bruins teams or the more recent Panther iterations, they just haven't been able to produce goals at a high enough rate to exceed what their opponents' top lines could do.
So much consecutive playoff disappointment would drive some franchises—Toronto—absolutely up a wall. But something to appreciate about Carolina is that they've stayed clear-eyed about their weaknesses and taken steps to address them. Last season, they tried to acquire their big-time supernova scorer when they traded for Mikko Rantanen, who topped out at 55 goals for the Avs in 2022–23. But Moose, as they call him, was taken aback by his sudden ejection from his career-long NHL home, and his relationship with Carolina just never got off on the right skate. Rather than stubbornly stay in an unhappy marriage, the Canes swapped him after just 13 games, making a bet on some draft picks and a much younger player, Logan Stankoven, who seems like he's developing into a long-term cornerstone.
NHL GMs don't have a button in their office they can press to immediately receive a player who'll make the top 10 on the goals leaderboard. But watching the Canes at work, you can appreciate what they're trying to do: get a guy with a certain amount of talent and see if this system can't help him rise even higher. The fruits of that labor were on full display Monday in Carolina's Game 2 win over Philly, with each goal showcasing a different thing to like about the Canes' construction.
The night started with the Flyers making a good response to their horrendous effort in Game 1. Just five minutes in, they were leading 2-0. But from that point on, the Hurricanes settled and played something closer to Their Game. Their first-period goal, on the power play, arrived when Jackson Blake set up Nikolaj Ehlers for a one-timer. Blake was drafted in the fourth round in 2021, before he went to college and became a standout for North Dakota. As a rookie last season, he immediately looked comfortable on NHL ice, and as a 22-year-old this year, he bumped up his counting stats with a 22-goal, 31-assist campaign. Ehlers, meanwhile, was a free-agent signing this summer out of Winnipeg, and the winger's taken advantage of an improved supporting cast to put up a new career high of 71 points.
The Hurricanes tied the game midway through the third. Jordan Staal, the 20-year vet who stitched together a 20-goal season, earned an assist alongside Ehlers, who did the work of entering the attacking zone. The finisher was Seth Jarvis, an electric scorer and two-way stud who was drafted 13th overall in 2020. At age 23, Jarvis put together his third straight 30-goal year. He's gelled with team leader Sebastian Aho and a resurgent Andrei Svechnikov for a top line that can hang with any team's. They hope.
Then, after nearly a full period of OT, Taylor Hall sent the fans home happy when he made a muscular push into the slot and cleaned up his own rebound, with the aid of a little tap from Blake. Hall's a former Hart Trophy winner who's played for seven teams across 16 years, never coming all that close to winning a Cup. In his year-and-a-half with Carolina, he's served as an ideal veteran role player, and in these playoffs he's caught fire, scoring three goals with six assists in six games so far.
I could say as many or more nice things about the rosters of most of the other teams left in the playoffs, and I expect Carolina's future to be much more difficult than these six straight wins they've just ripped off. But with all those disappointing playoff exits in their past, it's maybe a bit too easy to forget that this is a truly enviable run of franchise success, and I think this might be the most dangerous version of the Hurricanes to date.
