{"id":560485,"date":"2026-04-27T02:39:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T02:39:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/560485\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T02:39:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T02:39:13","slug":"hurricanes-use-postseason-experience-to-advance-in-playoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/560485\/","title":{"rendered":"Hurricanes use postseason experience to advance in playoffs"},"content":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0Carolina Hurricanes\u00a0tussled with Ottawa in pressure-packed games, and played with little open ice and a growing physical testiness, to open the\u00a0NHL playoffs. Years of postseason experience showed in taking\u00a0a first-round sweep<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What You Need To Know<\/p>\n

The Carolina Hurricanes’ postseason experience showed in their first-round sweep of the Ottawa Senators in the NHL playoffs
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The Hurricanes closed out the series with Saturday’s Game 4 road win
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That finished a best-of-7 series that saw the Eastern Conference’s top seed never trail
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The Hurricanes won behind elite play in net from Frederik Andersen and a penalty kill that allowed just one goal in the series<\/p>\n

The Eastern Conference’s top seed closed out the Senators 4-2 in Saturday’s Game 4 of the best-of-7 series. It capped a series that saw Carolina’s top line and power play go quiet, along with the team spending too much time in the penalty box. Yet the Hurricanes offset that with a dominating showing from their second line of Logan Stankoven, Taylor Hall and Jackson Blake, a nearly flawless penalty kill and elite goaltending from Frederik Andersen.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike we\u2019ve kind of talked about all year, whatever way the game goes, our group can handle it,\u201d said Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour, who has won at least one postseason series in all eight of his seasons. \u201cI didn\u2019t love all the penalties. There\u2019s a fine line you\u2019ve got to try to balance. I don\u2019t know that we did a great job there. But I loved just the compete level of our group from Game 1 all the way through. Pretty impressive.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Hurricanes’ playoff run under Brind’Amour goes back to an unexpected run to the Eastern Conference Final in 2019 after a nine-year postseason drought. They’ve been a postseason fixture ever since, reaching the Eastern final in two of the past three seasons, losing to Florida each time.<\/p>\n

Notably in 2023, they lost four one-goal games to the Panthers in a series that included a four-overtime thriller, an outcome that Brind’Amour said he didn’t regard like a traditional sweep because of how tight the series was.<\/p>\n

Fast forward three years, and the Hurricanes largely stood on the other side of that scenario. They never led by more than two goals and survived\u00a0a double-overtime Game 2<\/a>\u00a0before becoming\u00a0the first team to never trail in a first-round series<\/a>\u00a0since the Detroit Red Wings beat the Columbus Blue Jackets in 2009, according to ESPN Insights.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor it to be this tight of a series and not go our way, every game, it’s really tough,\u201d Ottawa captain Brady Tkachuk told reporters after Game 4.<\/p>\n

The Hurricanes’ experience showed in several ways as they improved to 11-5 in closeout games under Brind’Amour, winning six of their last seven.<\/p>\n

Andersen got the call with Brind’Amour opting for the 36-year-old’s veteran presence over former waiver pickup Brandon Bussi.\u00a0Andersen had an opening-game shutout<\/a>\u00a0on the way to stopping 105 of 110 shots (.955 save percentage) while positing a 1.10 goals-against average, and the Hurricanes needed him with Ottawa’s Linus Ullmark (.932, 2.03) looking terrific in the other crease.<\/p>\n

The top line of Sebastian Aho, Seth Jarvis and Andrei Svechnikov managed to produce what Brind’Amour colloquially called \u201cdiddly squat\u201d on the scoresheet. Jarvis (32) and Svechnikov (31) led the team in regular-season goals but didn’t find the net, Svechnikov didn’t tally a point, and two of Aho’s three goals were empty-net clinchers in Game 4.<\/p>\n

But the Stankoven-Hall-Blake line more than made up for it in\u00a0a reminder of Carolina’s scoring depth<\/a>. Stankoven\u00a0scored in all four games<\/a>, including the go-ahead goal on a third-period power play in Game 4. Blake had\u00a0the Game 3 winner<\/a>\u00a0to go with three assists, while Hall had a team-best seven points.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn’t imagine being in a better spot teamwise,\u201d said Hall, a former Hart Trophy winner as league MVP. \u201cJust the mix of guys that we have and having Rod as a coach has been awesome for me personally, the way he pushes buttons \u2014 it\u2019s not really pushing buttons, but he gets the most out of his players.\u201d<\/p>\n

And then there was the penalty kill, which got plenty of practice.<\/p>\n

Carolina went 20 for 21 (95.2%) in a series that got progressively chippier, notably with multiple scrums breaking out in a wild second period of Game 4. Captain Jordan Staal said the Hurricanes \u201cprobably went a little cuckoo\u201d in responding to hard hits and getting caught up in the period’s testy vibes.<\/p>\n

Carolina was called for eight of its 11 penalties in the second, yet the PK allowed only Drake Batherson’s tying redirect. And the Hurricanes settled down in the third with the goal of getting back to controlling 5-on-5 play, committing one penalty for too many men on the ice.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a very mature third period from us,\u201d Aho said.<\/p>\n

As for health, winger Nikolaj Ehlers was a late scratch for Game 4 due to a lower-body injury, while defenseman Alexander Nikishin was knocked from Game 4 in the second period with a concussion on a jarring hit from Ottawa’s Tyler Kleven. With Carolina being the first playoff team to advance, the Hurricanes will have several days to regroup before facing the Philadelphia-Pittsburgh winner in Round 2.<\/p>\n

Follow us on Instagram at\u00a0spectrumnews1nc<\/a>\u00a0for news and other happenings across North Carolina.<\/p>\n