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    Ryan Henkel
    Apr 29, 2024, 14:20

    The old cliche about playoff hockey is that you need depth to go deep.

    Luckily for Carolina, that depth is already becoming apparent.

    With the addition of Dmitry Orlov in the offseason and Jake Guentzel and Evgeny Kuznetsov at the trade deadline, the Canes have by far their deepest team talent-wise in the Rod Brind'Amour era.

    Through their first four games of the postseason, the Hurricanes have had 10 different goal scorers — tied for the most with the Oilers, Avalanche and Rangers — and all but three skaters (Tony DeAngelo, Jesperi Kotkaniemi, Jaccob Slavin) have registered at least a point.

    Every game, it's been a different set of skaters leading the way for Carolina.

    In Game 1, it was Evgeny Kuznetsov and Stefan Noesen propelling Carolina to a 3-1 finish.

    In Game 2, the skill players showed up to lead the comeback with Teuvo Teravainen, Seth Jarvis and Sebastian Aho all contributing to the win before Jordan Martinook secured the game winner.

    Then in Game 3, it was the defense's turn with both Brent Burns and Dmitry Orlov finding twine.

    And even though they lost Game 4, the power play still clicked with Noesen and Jarvis both tallying goals.

    With no skater having more than two goals — Jarvis, Aho and Noesen each have two a piece — it has been a true team effort in Carolina so far.

    The Canes also have four skaters leading the team with four points each (Jarvis, Andrei Svechnikov, Martin Necas, Jake Guentzel) and so you can't say there's been any one player having to carry more burden than the rest.

    Carolina is built to be a balanced scoring attack and clearly it's working.

    No team has generated more chances than the Canes (287) and they lead the league in CF% (59.67).

    They've had more than enough chances to score even more goals, but they're running into a bit of a hot goaltender in Semyon Varlamov.

    Despite that, the Hurricanes continue to be relentless in their offensive attack and it's more a matter of when, not if, they start truly piling up goals.

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