Just a quick series update on Montreal-Carolina, which isn’t going to take very long because….well just look at this. Game 4 obviously skews things a little, but that just makes it look like a total beatdown instead of a normal shellacking. I would say it’s hard to believe that two of these games needed OT for Carolina to win, but if you’ve watched any of Carolina’s playoff history you know that they never make things easy.

I will say that the Habs had small pockets of Games 2 & 3 where they were getting good chances on limited possessions, which is going to happen in any hockey game. Or at least that’s what I thought until Wednesday night, where the Hurricanes looked like Remember The Titans in the game where Coach Yoast tells the defense “we aren’t letting them gain a single yard.” That’s pretty much what happened here.

I have seen this team dialed in before, but never to the degree where almost every single play MTL tried to make was getting disrupted. K’Andre Miller’s performance here is getting underrated from lack of events with the puck, because he was easily the team’s best player at disrupting everything MTL was doing in all three zones, getting a stick on every entry or breakout attempt and dominating the game from the backend. Basically making sure MTL wasn’t getting any of those flurries that could swing the momentum of the game.

This was also the Hurricanes best performance in terms of chance quality, mostly because they were firing everything at the net. I thought they were being too patient early in the series with cycling the puck forever & trying not to get shots blocked. This game they were getting guys going on the rush, quickly setting up one-time opportunities & not wasting any time with how they wanted to attack. The Stankoven line in particular was phenomonal at this. I also think the dam about to break for Svechnikov. He leads the team in chance setups by a wide margin, especially with setting up breakaways out of the defensive zone. It’s just a matter of Jarvis or Aho finishing.

As far was what to look for tonight, I just want to see how Montreal responds after a rock bottom performance. Their top defensemen look gassed & the Hurricanes are reading most of Hutson’s breakouts even when they give him time to setup. Carolina is setup well to get over a huge mental hurdle tonight, but the playoffs can have some weird twists, so we will see what happens.