Cats and Canes have each had to overcome adversity while marching through first two rounds a combined 16-7
Both the Carolina Hurricanes and Florida Panthers have raised some eyebrows as they made their respective marches to the league semifinals.
Carolina making it is surprising, but not because of anything having to do with how they’ve performed on the ice. The Hurricanes have maneuvered their way to the conference final without several key players in their lineup.
Max Pacioretty and Andrei Svechnikov were lost for the season due to injuries, and in Game 2 of their opening-round series with the New York Islanders, Teuvo Teravainen was out indefinitely after taking a vicious slash from the Isles’ Jean-Gabriel Pageau.
Teravainen is nearing a return after joining his teammates for practice this week.
As for Florida, they've been a surprise for a plethora of reasons.
They were the last team to qualify for the Stanley Cup Playoffs, punching their postseason ticket in the second-to-last game on the schedule.
Goaltending had been erratic, to put it nicely, and the team had yet to show they could consistently perform well in Head Coach Paul Maurice's high-energy, incredibly physical system.
All this coming in a season made more challenging by a combination of injuries, illnesses and a brutal travel schedule.
It's amazing how much can change in a month.
“They've always been willing, from the first five days of training camp, which were brutal on them,” said Maurice. “They just stayed in the fight. They decided not to quit and not to give in.”
Those resilient Panthers have played their best hockey of the season when it’s counted the most.
They knocked off the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Boston Bruins in seven games before taking down the Toronto Maple Leafs in five by out-working, out-scoring and out-hustling their opponents, physically wearing them down with aggressive forechecking and tight gaps.
Now Florida will face a team in Carolina that they are very familiar with.
While there is no love lost between the former division rivals, a mutual respect has grown between the Cats and Canes.
“They're known for working really hard and keeping things simple,” said Panthers captain Sasha Barkov. “They play the hockey hard way, and it's going to be a hard battle between two teams.”
“They’re fast and they’re physical,” added Florida forward Nick Cousins.
The Panthers and Hurricanes have reached the conference finals playing a very comparable brand of hockey.
Everything Florida has been doing well over the past month, the things they’re being praised for (forechecking, physicality, tight gaps), are traits that the Hurricanes have been mastering under Head Coach Rod Brind’Amour for years.
“There will be a lot of similarities in intent, with how we want to play the game,” said Maurice.
Carolina is a team that will wear its opponent down defensively and wait for them to open up their game. That’s when they strike.
It draws comparison to what happened in Florida’s opening round series with the Bruins, when the first team to crack and try to force things offensively would end up opening lanes and creating opportunities for the other.
“It will be very, very similar,” said Maurice. “(Carolina and Boston are) probably analytically the two best forechecking teams on the eastern side.”
The Hurricanes enter the series having lost just three times during the postseason.
They were the Metropolitan Division champions, finishing with 113 points, second-most in the NHL behind only the record-breaking Bruins.
So while yes, it’s been very impressive who the Panthers have had to defeat in order to reach this point, it is still Carolina that enters the conference final as the favorite.
Florida wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I think that when it comes down to this series, again for us, we're playing that underdog role. No matter how you frame it, we are,” said Panthers forward Matthew Tkachuk. “I think that makes it more intense for us and it shows our team that we're not going to out-skill a team…we're going to need a full 60-minute-plus on some nights.
“We're going to have to play that gritty, in your face style. Carolina does the same thing; they play right in your face, and they don't give you much space. It's a low scoring game each and every night. That's how they like it and that's how we like it.”
The Panthers are full of confidence, and for good reason.
They finished the regular season with 92 points and just knocked out teams that had 135 points and 111 points.
It goes to show that once the playoffs begin, nothing that happened beforehand matters.
After slaying a pair of fire-breathing dragons from their own division, the Panthers are ready for the next challenge.
“I think its two teams that play really well,” Cousins said of facing Carolina. “I think they defend really well, they have good goaltending and then they've got some players we've got to be aware of up front, so it should be a good matchup.”
Added Tkachuk: "We're just going to have to play the same style, but better."