Round 1 Review: Canes Beat Devils In 5

RALEIGH, N.C. - The Carolina Hurricanes took care of business to start the Stanley Cup Playoffs, ousting the New Jersey Devils in five games.

Carolina was expected to be victorious coming into the series, but anything is possible this time of year. Overcoming some adversity to take down a banged-up New Jersey club, their ticket is now punched to Round 2, where they'll meet the winner of the series between the Montreal Canadiens and Washington Capitals.

• Game 1: Logan Stankoven scored twice and Frederik Andersen made 23 saves as the Canes thumped the Devils, 4-1, at Lenovo Center.
• Game 2: Jordan Martinook had a pair of points, and Frederik Andersen stopped 25 out of 26 in a 3-1 win in Raleigh.
• Game 3: Goals from Seth Jarvis and Sebastian Aho helped force overtime, but the Devils struck in the second OT to take the win.
• Game 4: Andrei Svechnikov recorded the second postseason hat trick in franchise history, paving the way to a 5-2 win at Prudential Center.
• Game 5: Carolina came back from trailing 3-0, and Sebastian Aho closed out the series with a 2OT winner.

In a lot of ways, Rod Brind'Amour's group did exactly what they needed to in order to be successful. Let's take a look back at some of their successes.

Stellar Special Teams...

New Jersey finished the regular season with the league's third-best power play and the second-best penalty kill. They couldn't have found themselves more on the other side of the coin during Round 1.

Their power play went 0-for-15, making them the only team in the postseason to not score on the man advantage, and their penalty kill allowed six power play goals on 19 tries, leaving them with just a 68.4% success rate.

Make no mistake, this was not the Devils struggling in both departments; Carolina was just cooking.

"I thought (New Jersey Assistant Coach Jeremy Colliton) had a good plan, connecting all of the games and all of the things that we needed to do succeed," Devils Head Coach Sheldon Keefe said after Game 4. "Their penalty kill is very unique to the league, and obviously better than everyone else... It takes away a lot of the things that our team thrives on and that's been a challenge."

While Keefe was impressed, it was just another week at the office for Tim Gleason's troops.

"I think we've been pretty good all year, and for the years of just doing it a certain way. Sometimes it doesn't work, but if you're consistent with what you're doing and everybody kind of has a good feel for it, then you give yourself a chance," Brind'Amour praised.

As for Carolina's power play, they scored in four of the five games, only held off the board in a 3-1 Game 2 victory.

Although they had their struggles on the man advantage during the regular season, Andrei Svechnikov thinks this series was a product of sticking with what you believe in.

"To be honest, it's been the same. We've just tried to talk about how we're going to rotate a little bit and move the puck a little faster, but it's been the same. The puck's just been going for us and hopefully it's going to continue to go for us," Svechnikov said.

Contributions By Committee...

When you look back at the wins in the series for Carolina, each had its own "hero." Yes, Frederik Andersen was a key in both Game 1 and Game 2, but someone has to put the puck in the net, and the Canes had seemingly someone different doing that each time out.

Logan Stankoven had a pair of goals in Game 1. Jordan Martinook had a multi-point effort in Game 2. Andrei Svechnikov's hat trick was the highlight of Game 4. And a two-goal night for Sebastian Aho polished off the series in Game 5.

The Canes got some great showings from several players, but that's the key. It wasn't just one.

Aho had a great series (8 points in 5 games), but he didn't have to score every night. Seth Jarvis didn't need to put the team on his back. And Jackson Blake wasn't tasked with heavy lifting in the production category. Each chipped in, but the group had someone different leading the way every night.

"That's playoffs. More often than not, there's scoring from different players if you want to win. Obviously, that's been the case," Aho said earlier this week. "A lot of different players are finding the scoresheet and that's big. That's how we're built, too. It's not a line or two, it's four forward lines and balance."

Carolina knows they're going to need more of that as they continue their quest forward.

"We need that. We need contributions. It can't just be sitting there waiting for the top guys to step up and make it happen. We need contributions everywhere," Rod Brind'Amour preached after the Game 5 victory.

A Resilient Roster...

To get even more granular, the Canes reminded themselves in this series that they can get it done in a variety of ways.

• In Game 1, the group scored in the opening three minutes and never looked back. It was a completely dominant effort.
• In Game 2, they were on the flip side of the situation, giving one up in the opening minutes and having to get to their game for the final 40 minutes.
• Even in a Game 3 loss, when Carolina was "junk", it still required the Devils two overtimes to beat them.
• In Game 4, the group had to dig in after a 3-0 lead quickly turned into a one-goal contest, and the Canes had their starting netminder knocked out of the game.
• And in Game 5, after going down 3-0, the team hit the reset button during the first intermission and overcame an early deficit.

Hypotheticals can be meaningless, but what if the Canes didn't push back in Game 2, and Game 3 went the way it did? What if the Canes succumbed to the strong momentum swing against them in Game 4 after Andersen left the game? What if they didn't show some resolve after a "brutal" start on Tuesday?

Sheldon Keefe said after Game 5 that he believed there was a path to victory for his team, and when you look at things through his lens, it's hard to disagree.

As we know now, the Canes showed that no matter the circumstances, they wouldn't be denied, and there was never any giving up.

“That’s not our team. That’s not our mindset that we like to have," Jaccob Slavin said. "We’re a hard-working team that’s going to go out there and try and compete, every shift. Roddy talks about it all the time, consistency. We’re just trying to stick to that.”

Getting off to slow starts in two out of the five games will certainly be something that Carolina tries to rectify ahead of Round 2, but they're a smart locker room with a head coach who knows that he doesn't need to remind them of such.

"I give the guys so much credit, because there’s not many games that even when we don’t play well, we don’t get back in the game," Brind'Amour shared on Tuesday. "We find a way. That’s what happened."