Hurricanes seek return to 'how we play,' even Eastern Final vs. Canadiens

RALEIGH, N.C. -- For Taylor Hall, the analysis of Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Final was pretty simple.

“One team looked like an Eastern Conference Final team and the other didn’t,” the Carolina Hurricanes forward said, the Montreal Canadiens getting the more favorable side of that synopsis.

It’s a tough critique but a fair one on the Hurricanes, who did not look like a conference finalist, especially in the first 10 minutes of their 6-2 loss to Montreal at Lenovo Center on Thursday. They’ll have to get back to their brand of strong, dependable defensive hockey if they want to even the best-of-7 series in Game 2, which is here Saturday (7 p.m. ET; HBO MAX, truTV, TNT, SN, TVAS, CBC). 

The Hurricanes were tremendous in their first eight games of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, four-game sweeps against the Ottawa Senators in the first round and the Philadelphia Flyers in the second. They allowed two or fewer goals in each of those games, a far cry from the four they allowed in the first period against the Canadiens on Thursday.

The performance against Montreal didn’t instill panic, but it was a wake-up call for Carolina: Remember how you played the final 40 minutes of the game? Do that instead.

“The second period was how we play," Hall said. "We call it the stress game where we’re playing in the other team’s end. They’re icing pucks, their sticks are breaking, there are multiple guys on the ice, they’re just doing whatever they can to save goals, and we get momentum off that. Our crowd feeds off of it. It’s the way we play.

“It’s just how everything kind of based off of it is forechecking, getting pucks back. It’s not the sexiest thing, but when we got to it there for a bit, you could see they were on their heels, we were feeling good about ourselves. All four lines were rolling. That’s how it looks and obviously the other team is trying to do the same thing to us, but we feel that the offense they created in the first period was a little bit self-inflicted. 

"They have very good players and they make plays and are very connected and they’re battle tested right now. But we feel that a lot of that was self-inflicted, so getting to our game is our focus tomorrow.”

The difference between the first and second periods were noticeable; the Hurricanes were pushing the pace, were challenging Canadiens goalie Jakub Dobes and had Montreal on its heels.

“They’re a fast team," Montreal forward Josh Anderson said. "There’s no secret about that. Coming in last night, we knew they were going to be quick. They haven’t played in a while. We wanted to step on them right away, but we expect for them to play like they did in the second period.

“They’re a really good hockey team over there. Obviously going to look at some video, and we’re going to have to be a lot sharper than we were last night because we’re going to see a different team tomorrow.”

Carolina’s first response Friday was to regroup; that did not include practicing. The Hurricanes practiced plenty between May 9, when they finished their second-round series against the Flyers, and Thursday. 

“That’s not what we need," Carolina coach Rod Brind'Amour said. "Today we did practice, you just didn’t see it. So there are two different ways to practice. There was no point in going on the ice today. That’s not what we need.”

The Hurricanes don’t need to adjust, either; it's not about that at this point. It’s one game, one period really, that’s gone wrong in the past nine games they’ve played. 

“That was definitely not our best effort," Carolina defenseman Sean Walker said. "Again, lots of the execution of what we want to be doing is going to limit a lot of stuff they want to do. We just get back to our game, a lot of stuff you saw in the first two rounds, we’ll be a lot more successful.”

The Hurricanes' history in the conference final is not good; this is the fifth time they have reached this point of the postseason since winning the Stanley Cup in 2006. The previous four were losses, including last season.

But they’re confident Game 1 was an anomaly of their postseason. They won’t forget it. They’ll just respond to it. 

“The whole flush-it thing in the playoffs is pretty hard," Hall said. "I think it’s that way for a reason. We need to understand what happened yesterday and why it happened. This morning we went over a lot of stuff about that. When we wake up tomorrow it’s about Game 2. But today it’s still about realizing what happened and correcting that.

“There’s nothing wrong with it. You can still do that and have a positive mindset and smile and laugh with your friends at the rink, but understand tomorrow has to be a different story.”