{"id":637036,"date":"2026-08-04T19:48:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T19:48:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/637036\/"},"modified":"2026-08-04T19:48:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T19:48:18","slug":"carolina-hurricanes-sweep-their-way-to-round-2-of-nhl-playoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/637036\/","title":{"rendered":"Carolina Hurricanes sweep their way to Round 2 of NHL playoffs"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

The Eastern Conference\u2019s top seed closed out the Senators 4-2 in Saturday\u2019s Game 4 of the best-of-7 series. It capped a series that saw Carolina\u2019s 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 its 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\u2019Amour, 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\u2019 playoff run under Brind\u2019Amour goes back to an unexpected run to the Eastern Conference Final in 2019 after a nine-year postseason drought. They\u2019ve 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\u2019Amour said he didn\u2019t 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 a double-overtime Game 2<\/a> before becoming the first team to never trail in a first-round series<\/a> since 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\u2019s really tough,\u201d Ottawa captain Brady Tkachuk told reporters after Game 4.<\/p>\n

The Hurricanes\u2019 experience showed in several ways as they improved to 11-5 in closeout games under Brind\u2019Amour, winning six of their last seven.<\/p>\n

Andersen got the call with Brind\u2019Amour opting for the 36-year-old\u2019s veteran presence over former waiver pickup Brandon Bussi. Andersen had an opening-game shutout<\/a> on 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\u2019s 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\u2019Amour colloquially called \u201cdiddly squat\u201d on the scoresheet. Jarvis (32) and Svechnikov (31) led the team in regular-season goals but didn\u2019t find the net, Svechnikov didn\u2019t tally a point, and two of Aho\u2019s three goals were empty-net clinchers in Game 4.<\/p>\n

But the Stankoven-Hall-Blake line more than made up for it in a reminder of Carolina\u2019s scoring depth<\/a>. Stankoven scored in all four games<\/a>, including the go-ahead goal on a third-period power play in Game 4. Blake had the Game 3 winner<\/a> to go with three assists, while Hall had a team-best seven points.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t 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\u2019s testy vibes.<\/p>\n

Carolina was called for eight of its 11 penalties in the second, yet the PK allowed only Drake Batherson\u2019s 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\u2019s 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

___<\/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 Carolina Hurricanes tussled with Ottawa in pressure-packed games, and played with little open ice and a growing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":637037,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[463,464],"tags":[28,1742,536,19349,29,1744,1239,5,510,1284,539,520,1279,4,292,60,794,2668,25,1535,1174,1177,43,14,104,718,1110,3820],"class_list":["post-637036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl-playoffs","category-stanley-cup-playoffs","tag-alexander-nikishin","tag-andrei-svechnikov","tag-brady-tkachuk","tag-brandon-bussi","tag-carolina-hurricanes","tag-drake-batherson","tag-frederik-andersen","tag-hockey","tag-jackson-blake","tag-jordan-staal","tag-linus-ullmark","tag-logan-stankoven","tag-nc-state-wire","tag-nhl","tag-nhl-hockey","tag-nhl-playoffs","tag-nikolaj-ehlers","tag-north-carolina","tag-ottawa-senators","tag-rod-brindamour","tag-sebastian-aho","tag-seth-jarvis","tag-sports","tag-stanley-cup","tag-stanley-cup-playoffs","tag-stanley-cup-playoffs-nhl","tag-taylor-hall","tag-tyler-kleven"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/117038973502333265","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637036","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=637036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637036\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/637037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}