The Carolina Hurricanes made history, but the Stanley Cup is a different story

“Their D… they have the best sticks I’ve ever seen. It was crazy. Some of the plays you’d just be like ‘I can get this through,’ like Slav [Jaccob Slavin] has probably the best stick in the league. I had two Grade-A’s [scoring chances] and they hit his stick and up in the netting. I was like ‘how on earth is that not in the back of the net?’” The length of the Carolina blueliners is causing massive problems for any team trying to play pretty, puck rotation hockey. Throughout the Flyers series we saw the Philly attack get decimated due to deflections from Slavin, K’Andre Miller, and Alexander Nikishin — with their pairings in Jalen Chatfield, Shayne Gostisbehere, and Sean Walker serving more as the more traditional net battlers. This layered defense has been impenetrable in the playoffs and has been offset with the Canes showing more fight and edge that they have previously. So why is there so much doubt that this can carry over to the cup? There are three fair statements to make:

1. The Hurricanes haven’t faced an elite, 90+ point player yet in the playoffs
2. They’ve been *so good* defensively that it seems impossible to keep it up
3. Carolina’s best players really haven’t turned up yet Forgive the pun, but you can see the storm brewing for Carolina that this incredible run could go south quickly (another pun, sorry). Getting the better of Stützle or Konecny is one thing, but when that caliber of player changes to Nathan McKinnon, Martin Nečas, Nick Suzuki, or Kirill Kaprizov — can this same approach still work? Is there a break point to this defensive dominance where Carolina *can* be overwhelmed by star players, and if that happens can the Canes recover? That is the real worry right now, and it’s fair to question what is happening with the Carolina top line. The heroes of the playoffs thus far for the Canes has been the Hall/Stankoven/Blake line two, which has been phenomenal — but there has been pronounced quietness from Andrei Svechnikov, Sebastian Aho, and Seth Jarvis on the top line, outside of a few glimmers of magic. We know that historically the NHL playoffs have been won through star power, even by teams like the Panthers who were bruising, but still leaned on Matthew Tkachuk, Sam Bennett, and Brad Marchand to drag them through. If the Canes can’t get that top-line performance firing then there’s a chance they can’t assert their will on the game, which has a domino effect on the rest of the lines, thereby putting more pressure on the defense to bail the team out. The biggest questions about the Hurricanes won’t get answered for some time, with Saturday being the earliest their next series can begin. Whether the Sabres or Canadiens come out of the Atlantic, either team will be the best opposition Carolina has faced, with more star power and deeper lines. If the Canes are able to keep up this dominance in the Eastern Conference Finals then we can really talk about their chances to beat the Avs or Wild in the West. So are the Canes really cup favorites or pretenders? They’re both, and neither, and bizarrely somewhere in the middle. Carolina is a unique Rod Brind’Amour team that approaches hockey in a way no one else does, which means we can’t use the typical yardsticks to measure their potential. It’s all a big guessing game, but that’s what make these playoffs so much fun.