Hurricanes vs. Canadiens: Eastern Conference Final Preview – Lines, Notes, Goalies, and How to Watch Game 1
IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect After 11 days of waiting, the Carolina Hurricanes will open up the Eastern Conference Final against the Montreal Canadiens from their home arena, Lenovo Center, in Raleigh, N. C. , Thursday night.
The game is scheduled for 8:00 PM EDT. Going into the Eastern Conference Finals, special teams will be a note of interest. Of the four teams remaining in the postseason, the Hurricanes rank first in the penalty kill and last in the power play, while the Canadiens rank last in the penalty kill, and third in the power play.
Throughout the season series, the Hurricanes dropped all three games to the Canadiens, failing to play the full sixty minutes in each of them. However, that means very little when it comes to the postseason – when all teams are firing on all cylinders. After all, the Ottawa Senators took the season series against the Hurricanes, as well, and ultimately failed to claim a lead at any point during the postseason.
With that being said, while Montreal has been a strong road team, they have been largely unimpressive in their own barn. With six games having been played in Bell Centre this postseason, they have lost four of them. However, there is another interesting statistic at play here.
Per SDPN Sports’ Executive Producer, Drew Livingstone , teams who face an opponent who has swept the previous round, while having gone to Game 7 in their own round, have won 7-1 since 2000. Nonetheless, the last instance of such a matchup was in 2022, in which the formerly sweeping team flipped the script and took the win. In Hurricanes history, however, they have only faced the Canadiens twice in the playoffs – first in 2002, and again in 2006.