On eve of playoffs, Canes defenseman goes 1-on-1 with ABC11

The Carolina Hurricanes battled through the regular season to claim the Eastern Conference's top seed for the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Yet the coming weeks will determine whether this season is considered a success, starting with a best-of-7 series against the Ottawa Senators.

"You can do all these great things during the regular season, but I almost think of regular season and postseason as two different, two completely different games, almost even," defenseman K'Andre Miller told ABC11. "Yeah, we had success with a long regular season, yeah, we were able to put up a good amount of points and come in first or whatever, but honestly, all that stuff drops. I think talent can only get you so far, obviously. I think what's going to matter most is kind of bringing it each night."

This is the eighth consecutive playoff appearance for the Hurricanes, whose active postseason streak is surpassed only by Colorado and Tampa Bay at nine years. So regular-season success isn't new. Nor is postseason success with 10 series wins in this run.

But they've hit a familiar ceiling, falling in the Eastern Conference final in two of the past three years and thrice in the current playoff streak. Now they'll try again to play their way back to that position, then take that final step.

"They've all worked for 10 months to get to this point to have this opportunity," coach Rod Brind'Amour said. "We just want to put our best foot forward."

The first-round tussle, with Game 1 set for 3 p.m. on Saturday, pairs teams with very different recent histories.

Going back to the 2020-21 season, Carolina is second among all NHL teams behind Colorado in points (632) and regulation wins (238). Meanwhile, the Senators ranked 20th with 484 points and 173 regulation wins in that span. They're back for a second straight postseason, with last year's team losing a six-game first-round series to Toronto. Before that, Ottawa had languished through a seven-year postseason drought following a seven-game loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins in the 2017 Eastern Conference final.

But the Senators won five of six to secure a wild-card spot, a run that began with a 6-3 home win against the Hurricanes. They clinched their trip with a 3-0 win against the New York Islanders on April 11, followed by 's regulation home loss to later that day.