The NHL playoff field included some unexpected entrants, and the first two rounds featured some surprises and a handful of upsets.<\/p>\n
Yet as things stand right now with the conference finals beginning Tuesday night, the teams still in contention for the Stanley Cup<\/a> are a familiar mix of those who have been fighting for it the past few years.<\/p>\n The West final is a rematch of this same round last year with the Dallas Stars facing<\/a> the Edmonton Oilers. The Carolina Hurricanes are in the East final<\/a> for a second time in three years, awaiting their opponent from the winner of Game 7 between Florida and Toronto on Sunday night.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve already been in a conference final, and we know what\u2019s going to happen there,\u201d said Carolina\u2019s Andrei Svechnikov, whose eight goals are second in the postseason to only Mikko Rantanen. \u201cIt\u2019s not going to be easy there.\u201d<\/p>\n Nothing is easy this time of year. But some team is eight wins \u2014 the Panthers and Maple Leafs nine away \u2014 from hoisting the Cup.<\/p>\n East: Carolina vs. Toronto or Florida<\/p>\n Game 1: Tuesday at Carolina if the Panthers win or at Toronto if the Leafs win (8 p.m. EDT, TNT)<\/p>\n Oddsmakers had<\/a> the Hurricanes among the championship favorites going into the playoffs, in part because their path included an opening series against New Jersey without best player Jack Hughes<\/a>. They were also favored to beat Washington, then suffocated the Capitals<\/a> to finish it out in five games<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cYou hope it\u2019s a value,\u201d coach Rod Brind\u2019Amour said of playing just 10 games through two rounds and getting time off to heal. \u201cThere definitely is something to that.\u201d<\/p>\n There is also something to Carolina being overlooked each year, dogged by a string of disappointing exits. But this team is one Igor Shesterkin goaltending showcase away from being in the East final for a third spring in a row.<\/p>\n The Hurricanes have allowed the fewest goals a game in the playoffs, thanks to Frederik Andersen\u2019s play in net<\/a> and a penalty kill clicking at a top-ranked 93.3%. Their first line of Svechnikov, Sebastian Aho and Seth Jarvis has also been stellar.<\/p>\n But they\u2019ve also played with a bit of a chip on their shoulder without names-on-the-marquee star power.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know if this team gets maligned or this and that because we don\u2019t have an (Alex) Ovechkin: We don\u2019t have the greatest goal scorer of all time,\u201d Brind\u2019Amour said. \u201cAnd we don\u2019t have a (Nathan) MacKinnon or all these superstar kind of players. We have a little different mix, and we think we do have those kind of players \u2014 they just do it a little differently. Every team counts on all their players, but I think we definitely need everyone to contribute, and that\u2019s what you\u2019re getting right now.\u201d<\/p>\n The defending champion Panthers did not face Carolina on the way to the title last year, but they did in the East final in 2023, winning that series in a sweep before getting beaten by the Golden Knights. The most recent time Toronto got this far in the playoffs was 2002 \u2014 also against the Hurricanes, who won to advance to that franchise\u2019s first Cup final before losing to Hall of Famer-stacked Detroit.<\/p>\n West final: Dallas vs. Edmonton<\/p>\n Game 1: Wednesday at Dallas (8 p.m. EDT, ESPN)<\/p>\n Katy Perry was scheduled to be on tour at the Stars\u2019 arena on Wednesday night. Instead, it will be Corey Perry and the Oilers. <\/p>\n Edmonton has rolled since opening the playoffs with a pair of losses at Los Angeles, getting back to the third round thanks to an unlikely combination<\/a> of defense and goaltending. And, oh yeah, Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl have combined for 33 points, too. No big deal.<\/p>\n The Oilers won the West final last year in six games, with Stuart Skinner putting up a 1.91 goals-against average and a .922 save percentage and the Stars\u2019 Jake Oettinger a 2.56 and .901. Oettinger has been a rock this playoffs to get Dallas<\/a> through Colorado and Winnipeg<\/a> and now has the chance to show he can carry a team into the final.<\/p>\n \u201cThe guys that hadn\u2019t had any experience, we have all the experience in the world now,\u201d Oettinger said. \u201cIt\u2019s up to us as a group to take that next step, and I think we should feel great about what we\u2019ve done with the adversity we\u2019ve faced. I think our best hockey is yet to come.\u201d<\/p>\n Peter DeBoer has now coached a team into the third round for the sixth time in seven years. He was fired twice in that span, once each by San Jose and Vegas.<\/p>\n To play for the Stanley Cup that has eluded him, the Stars need to flip the script on the Oilers, with McDavid and Draisaitl also motivated 11 months since falling one game short<\/a> of hockey\u2019s hallowed trophy.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ve got two hungry teams that have been really close and haven\u2019t gotten there yet,\u201d DeBoer said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be a battle of wills here.\u201d<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n AP Sports Writer Stephen Hawkins in Dallas contributed to this report.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n AP NHL playoffs: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/stanley-cup<\/a> and https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nhl<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NHL playoff field included some unexpected entrants, and the first two rounds featured some surprises and a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37531,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[1742,29,155,869,147,146,1280,57,1239,5,2273,1272,424,8825,370,270,285,1279,4,292,2668,2087,1535,1174,1177,43,14,300,104,157,31,1275],"class_list":{"0":"post-37530","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hockey","8":"tag-andrei-svechnikov","9":"tag-carolina-hurricanes","10":"tag-connor-mcdavid","11":"tag-corey-perry","12":"tag-dallas-stars","13":"tag-edmonton-oilers","14":"tag-fl-state-wire","15":"tag-florida-panthers","16":"tag-frederik-andersen","17":"tag-hockey","18":"tag-igor-shesterkin","19":"tag-jack-hughes","20":"tag-jake-oettinger","21":"tag-katy-perry","22":"tag-leon-draisaitl","23":"tag-mikko-rantanen","24":"tag-national-hockey-league","25":"tag-nc-state-wire","26":"tag-nhl","27":"tag-nhl-hockey","28":"tag-north-carolina","29":"tag-pete-deboer","30":"tag-rod-brindamour","31":"tag-sebastian-aho","32":"tag-seth-jarvis","33":"tag-sports","34":"tag-stanley-cup","35":"tag-stanley-cup-finals","36":"tag-stanley-cup-playoffs","37":"tag-stuart-skinner","38":"tag-toronto-maple-leafs","39":"tag-tx-state-wire"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}