Riding a flawless postseason start and elite goaltending, Carolina chases an unprecedented double sweep in Philadelphia.
The Carolina Hurricanes are on the precipice of history.
The Canes have started the postseason with a perfect 7-0 record and if they can pull off that eighth straight win tonight in Philadelphia, they'll be the first team to ever pull off back-to-back four-game sweeps.
Since the best-of-seven format was adopted in 1987, no team has advanced to the conference finals without at least one loss.
Several teams have started 7-0 — Carolina is the third* in the last 30 years, joining the 2008 Pittsburgh Penguins and 2024 New York Rangers — but no one has been able to do it in back-to-back rounds.
(*Funny enough, Jordan Staal has been involved in some capacity in all three of those runs, twice on the winning side with Pittsburgh and Carolina and once on the losing side against New York)
The Canes have gotten to this point thanks in large part to a greater team effort.
Even though the team's second line of Logan Stankoven, Taylor Hall and Jackson Blake have been doing most of the heavy lifting, they're still getting contributions up and down the lineup with 10 different goal scorers and 16 different players with at least a point across their seven postseason games.
The defense and penalty kill has also been lights out too, but most notably, Frederik Andersen has been a dominant force, with by far the league's best goaltending performances so far these playoffs.
"We're playing really hard," said Carolina coach Rod Brind'Amour. "Generally we do that anyway, but I think we're getting by on some real good compete and effort and then some real good individual plays. You see it on some of the goals, some really good individual efforts, our goaltending has been great and so it's been kind of a little different every game. But that's kind of been our calling card in these playoffs. Finding a way to get it done."
However, the Hurricanes know that making history isn't going to be an easy task.
The Flyers haven't managed to win a game yet, but they pushed Carolina to double overtime in Game 2 and certainly had their chances throughout Game 3.
"For me, it's pretty simple to stay grounded," said forward Nikolaj Ehlers. "You look at [Game 3], we could have been down 3-0 after the first period. Freddie was able to make some good saves and they hit some posts and a crossbar. That shows you that they're ready to go and it can happen pretty quick."
One would think that human nature might come into play at some point. That an unrealized overconfidence might sneak it's way into the minds of the players. But so far, there's no apparent evidence of such a thing.
Instead, the only impression you get from the Hurricanes' room is of a group that is as unsatisfied now as they were back in the preseason.
"It starts in the room with the leadership," Brind'Amour said. "We're all going to say the right things as coaches and try to get them prepared, but they have to come ready to go. The guys understand that. We have guys in there that understand that every game starts fresh and that what you've done is irrelevant."
The Hurricanes are a team that truly take things one day at a time and that's part of the reason they can remain so even keel.
"You just have to take it day-by-day and not think ahead of us or about what has happened in the past," said Sebastian Aho. "That's kind of been our goal this whole season, really. I think we've done a pretty good job of it and we just have to keep doing what we've been doing."
If there's one thing you can count on, its the fact that the Canes will be ready for Game 4. Maybe things go their way, maybe they won't, but they're well aware that they're going to need to bring their A-game on Saturday.
"We're gonna expect their best, but I also expect our best quite frankly too," Aho said. "It's gonna be a hard game right from the start and we have to be ready."
"We're up 3-0 in the series, but that fourth win is the hardest one to get and we know that they're going to be ready to go," Ehlers said.
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