The Carolina Hurricanes are moving on to the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, after eliminating the New York Islanders with a Game 5 win last night.
Carolina was able to pull ahead to an early multi-goal lead in the first period, and while they did end up squandering it, two third period goals in quick succession ended up putting them back ahead, leading to a 6-3 win. With the victory, it marks the second year in a row in which the Hurricanes have eliminated the Islanders in the opening round of the postseason.
For a full recap of Game 5, it can be viewed here:
-ARTICLE: Islanders eliminated from playoffs after Game 5 loss to Hurricanes
Obviously, it's great for Carolina to be able to make quick work of the Islanders. But despite the Hurricanes wrapping up the series quickly, it still feels like they weren’t really consistently at their best. There were some stretches where they looked great: the back half of Game 2, and the first period of Game 5 come to mind. But for a team that can be so dominant, especially with what we saw in the back half of the year, their first round series against New York ended up being really close on a game-to-game basis.
On the blue line, Brady Skjei led the way with five assists, but the Hurricanes are still without Brett Pesce. While it does seem like he’s not too far off from a return, what the last couple games proved is the defense group looks an awful lot stronger with him in the lineup as opposed to Tony DeAngelo.
Up front, we saw a fairly even distribution of scoring, and the power play really clicked. Seth Jarvis continued his breakout year to lead the way with three goals and seven points, while Martin Necas and Andrei Svechnikov each had a goal and five points, and all of Evgeny Kuznetsov, Jake Guentzel and Teuvo Teravainen had four points. Sebastian Aho may have been a little quiet at times, but the Hurricanes also got depth scoring from the likes of Stefan Noesen and Jacky Drury.
We’ve seen how willing Rod Brind’Amour is to reshuffle the lines, so we’ll see how much that continues into Round 2. Speaking of Brind'Amour, his contract status is also beginning to loom large, but hopefully it's sorted out (or at least the noise quiets down), so it doesn't become a distraction.
In net, Frederik Andersen was good, posting a .912 save percentage and 2.25 goals against average. But at times, he did still seems a little shaky, and he had even lost his balance earlier in the series before the point in which he allowed that Casey Cizikas goal.
Regardless, the Hurricanes move to the second round for the fifth time in six years. It may be an overreaction to criticize parts of their first round, considering they wrapped things up pretty quickly. It just seems like there should still be another gear to come.
Now, the Hurricanes turn their attention to the New York Rangers for Round 2.
Similar to the Islanders, the Hurricanes are no strangers to facing the Rangers in the postseason. The Hurricanes eliminated New York in the Qualifying Round of the 2020 COVID bubble, before the teams met in the second round of the 2022 playoffs, where the Rangers bested the Hurricanes in seven games.
These are arguably two of the NHL’s very strongest teams on paper, and while the Islanders put up a fight, the Rangers are poised to be a much tougher task. The teams met three times this season, with New York winning twice.
The second round schedule has yet to be released, but a series preview article will be posted on Friday.
OTHER ARTICLES FROM THE PLAYOFFS
- Hurricanes enter playoffs as a force in the East
- Takeaways from Hurricanes’ Game 1 win over Islanders
- Hurricanes hold all momentum after huge Game 2 comeback vs. Islanders
- Hurricanes take stranglehold on series with Game 3 win
- Hurricanes facing another chance to close out series after Game 4 loss
Carolina Hurricanes Blogger • 
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