As basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar famously said, “You can’t win until you learn how to lose,” and the Hurricanes are proving that lesson tenfold.
Their trials and tribulations in the conference finals over recent years look to be comfortably behind them as they return to Raleigh with a 3-1 series lead over the Canadiens.
Montreal has no answers for the Hurricanes right now. The Habs managed one lonely shot on goal between the ladder portion of Game 3 and into the opening period of Game 4. They can’t break out of their own end, and the Hurricanes’ forecheck is making them pay for it.
Just take Jordan Staal’s goal at 3:53 of the first period on Wednesday: Josh Anderson hesitated near the blue line, and Carolina stripped the puck from him to create a prime scoring chance.
This is the difference between experience and inexperience, and oddmakers aren’t second-guessing anything: Carolina is a pretty penny -225 on the moneyline in Game 5.
Its 4-0 throttling of Montreal — in the Bell Centre, no less — was enough to indicate just how wide the margin is. The shots on goal deficit was 43-18 in favor of Carolina in Game 4 after it held the Habs to 25 combined shots in Games 2 and 3. Montreal didn’t register a third-period shot on Frederik Andersen until 2:55 remained, so this is more survival hockey than anything.
In the other three conference-final runs Rod Brind’Amour has led the Hurricanes to since 2019, there was never any offensive balance. Here, we’re seeing contributions up and down the lineup from Sebastian Aho to Jordan Staal and Logan Stankoven.
The Canadiens’ best player has been goaltender Jakub Dobes, and when your rookie goalie recording 39 saves is the only reason games aren’t getting out of hand, sustainability becomes an issue.
The five-on-five disadvantage is enough; on the power play, the Canadiens conjured one shot on goal in two opportunities. That’s aside from the fact that they offered Carolina four more man advantages because of undisciplined play.
Carolina was fully comfortable controlling pace and territory by the time Martin St. Louis tried to shake things up late and finally split apart the top line.
There’s credit to be given to a young and resilient bunch, but no matter how much the Habs punch above their weight class, every meaningful trend says that they have reached their ceiling.
The Hurricanes have paid their dues, and they’re ready to stamp their ticket back to the Stanley Cup Final for the first time since 2006 in emphatic fashion.
THE PLAY: Hurricanes -1.5 (+115, bet365)
Sean Treppedi handicaps the NFL, NHL, MLB and college football for the New York Post. He primarily focuses on picks that reflect market value while tracking trends to mitigate risk.
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