Hurricanes turn focus to Canadiens after long wait for East Final opponent

RALEIGH, N.C. – The Carolina Hurricanes were happy to finally watch video of another team, in this case the Montreal Canadiens. 

It’s been 11 days since the Hurricanes last played, and just two days since their Jordan Martinook said Wednesday. “Feels like 10 days. Now it’s focusing in on what they do, what we’re going to need to do to be successful against them.”

While the Hurricanes swept the Philadelphia Flyers in the second round, a series that ended on May 9, the Canadiens and Buffalo Sabres played a seven-game series. Montreal won Game 7 in overtime on Monday to punch its ticket to the conference final, which starts Thursday with Game 1 at Lenovo Center (8 p.m. ET; HBO MAX, truTV, TNT, SN, TVAS, CBC). 

“I think for the most part, everybody’s watching the games,” Martinook said. “We’ve got nothing else to do. We’re watching. We’re pretty in tune with what they’ve got going on.”

What the Canadiens have going on is what the Hurricanes will be trying to stop, from their strong power play (25 percent) to star forwards in Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield and Alex Newhook and defenseman Lane Hutson.

“I think they play a pretty good stretch game, similar to us,” Hurricanes defenseman Sean Walker said. “They get the puck out pretty clean and they have high-skill guys who can make you pay. Going to try to limit their chances, keep them off the power play and stick to our game.”

The Canadiens defeated the Hurricanes three times during the regular season, but the playoffs can be a different beast. 

“They had a great season, they’re a great team. They’re a high-pressure team, they’re fast, they have a good goalie (Jakub Dobes) and they have a good power play,” Hurricanes captain Jordan Staal said. “They don’t give you much time but they make it hard on you to get anywhere on the ice, get it moving forward. That’s what good teams do.

“There’s no reason why we wouldn’t see them do as well as they have in the playoffs because the way they play is a playoff-grinding game and it showed those first two series against two good teams they beat. It’s going to be a great challenge.”

The Hurricanes’ other challenge, of course, is getting back up to the speed they were at when they finished off the Flyers.

“It was a challenge to stay sharp and yet knowing we were going to have so much time, you don’t want to give them too much because it’s a mental drain, the playoffs,” coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “As you guys know covering it, it’s just like every night you’re like, ‘Holy mackerel.’ So to get away from it is good but you also don’t want to get too far away from it because you get out of the wheel, so to speak. That’s been the challenge.”

The Hurricanes have had two long breaks since the playoffs began. They had six days off after sweeping the Ottawa Senators in the first round.

“We’ve had two of those these playoffs, so it’s been very interesting,” Brind’Amour said. “Hopefully the rest, the mental rest will pay off for us. I don’t know how it’s going to be physically. We’ve had some time to heal up but the pace, I’m not sure how that’s going to translate, but we’ll find out.”

The Canadiens have spread the offense around through the postseason, where they’ve averaged 3.07 goals per game, just ahead of the Hurricanes at 3.00. Hutson leads Montreal with 14 points (two goals, 12 assists), followed by Suzuki with 13 (four goals, nine assists). Caufield, who scored 51 goals in the regular season, is tied for second in goals with four along with Suzuki, Kirby Dach and Juraj Slafkovsky. 

Newhook, who had the series-winning goal against the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 7 of the first round and the Sabres in Game 7 of the second round, leads the Canadiens with seven goals and is one of three with nine points (seven goals, two assists).

But shutting teams down is Carolina’s forte. It leads the NHL in allowing 1.25 goals per game through two rounds, holding the Senators and Flyers to five games each series. 

Now the focus just shifts to Montreal.

“I think as a team, all over the ice we try to be a puck-pressure team, try to take away time and space,” defenseman Jaccob Slavin said. “It’s no different for us in the D zone. In some people’s eyes, it may look like man-on-man, but we’re trying to pressure the puck as much as possible and very similar to how Montreal plays in their D zone.

“It’s high-puck pressure but for going at a team like Montreal that has good forwards who have good skill, really just have to make sure we know where our man is, we know where our help is, we know where we can help out. But just continue to take away that time and space.”