CAROLINA HURRICANES NEWS CLIPPINGS • May 13, 2021 Hurricanes, Predators have hockey history, all the way back to 1998 By Chip Alexander The Canes lost to the Boston Bruins in five games in the opening round of the 1999 Stanley Cup playoffs. Chiasson It was Oct. 13, 1998. The game had ended, the Carolina tragically would die in a traffic accident after the team Hurricanes were angry about it, and it was time to write. returned from Boston following Game 5. “Second verse, same as the first. Only worse. ...” the News & Time passed. The Canes won the Stanley Cup in 2006. They Observer reported. had other playoff teams in 2001, 2002 and 2009, reaching The Hurricanes, in their second game of the 1998-99 the 2002 Stanley Cup finals, and are making their third season, had lost to the Nashville Predators, 3-2, in what was consecutive playoff appearance this season under head then called Nashville Arena. coach Rod Brind’Amour. Beginning their second season in North Carolina, the The Predators reached the 2017 Stanley Cup finals, losing to Hurricanes were looking for a strong start. Instead, they the Pittsburgh Penguins, They won the Presidents’ Trophy allowed three third-period goals in a 4-4 tie with Tampa Bay for the first time in 2018, then were beaten by the WInnipeg in their opener in Greensboro, then followed with the loss to Jets in the second round of the playoffs. the Predators. Until this year, the Hurricanes and Predators have never Why worse? The Predators were an NHL expansion team in gone head-to-head in the playoffs. It took a pandemic, a their first season. The win over the Hurricanes was the first condensed season and a new Central Division, but the two for the new franchise. It was a first at home for the Predators, teams finally will face off in the opening round of the 2021 who had lost their opener, and their first NHL points. postseason. It’s another first. “There’s no excuse for it,” Canes defenseman Steve History was made in October 1998. Will more be made this Chiasson said after the game. “We’re a veteran team and year? there’s just no excuse, none.” (Chip Alexander covered the 1998 Canes-Preds game in The Canes recovered from what would be an 0-1-3 start that Nashville for the News & Observer) season. They won the Southeast Division — Tampa finished last — and gave the state its first NHL playoff team. CAROLINA HURRICANES NEWS CLIPPINGS • May 13, 2021 In this strange Hurricanes season, bad feelings will come prepackaged in the playoffs By Luke DeCock Bob Probert and Joe Kocur and Stu Grimson and Al Secord and Basil McRae weren’t avenging clean hits as the modern Who, in the spring of 2001, cared about the New Jersey code illogically insists, or putting on a show for their supper Devils? David Puddy, maybe. Certainly not anyone around like minor-league brawlers; their fights were bad blood the Carolina Hurricanes or any of their fans. spilling onto the ice, too often literally. Then, Scott Stevens clobbered Shane Willis coming through Across the NHL, we may not have seen that kind of old- the neutral zone and stood up Ron Francis along the boards, school bare-knuckling this season, but tempers have knocking both out of the first playoff series played at what is certainly flared as teams see the same teams over and over now PNC Arena. Suddenly, everyone had an opinion about again, and nobody else. All those years in the Southeast the Devils, none of them good. Division never seemed to spark anything between the The Hurricanes got their revenge in 2002 — Francis Hurricanes and either of the Florida teams, but this season shrugged off Stevens to score the series-clinching goal — certainly did. The April games the Hurricanes played at and drove Martin Brodeur around the bend in 2006 and Tampa Bay and Florida were chippy, to say the least. produced an improbable Game 7 comeback in 2009. The two last-season losses in Nashville raised the stakes, It got a little weird: If the Hurricanes were in the playoffs, for and if the Hurricanes get past the Predators to face the a while they were guaranteed to see the Devils. winner between those two, the bad feelings will come prepackaged. And for that while, regular-season games against the Devils had a little more spice. That can’t be conjured at will. There may not be any history between the Hurricanes and Rivalries aren’t imposed through marketing or geography. any of the teams they might play in the first two rounds, but They have to happen organically, and that almost always there’s more than enough enmity from the regular season to happens in the postseason. spill over into the postseason. For years, people tried to make Canes-Caps happen as a “I think so,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “Let’s rivalry. It took seven brutal games in 2019 to take it to the put it this way: after these series they will for sure.” next level. The fact that every time Montreal visited during In that sense, it’s a partial shame the NHL will move away the regular season a new Canes-to-Quebec rumor would from these divisions and this format as cross-border travel start north of the border had as much to do with surliness becomes possible again. Keeping the playoffs within the over the Habs’ elimination at the hands of the Hurricanes in divisions was a throwback solution to a new problem, and it 2002 and 2006 as anything else. should have the same consequences: more heated early Or take Buffalo. Please. series, at the expense of overall competitive equity. (It’s possible three of the four best teams in the NHL are in this In the modern NHL, familiarity doesn’t breed contempt: division, but only one will advance to the third round.) Elimination games do. Even if only among fans. This was never a long-term thing, but it had short-term “People outside think more about, is there a rivalry?” benefits as the NHL played its way through the pandemic. Hurricanes center Sebastian Aho said. “We’ll just go out Division play was more interesting in the regular season; there and do our best and try to win some hockey games.” seeing the same teams over and over again didn’t get old But this year’s division-focused NHL is a throwback NHL, until the Hurricanes and Predators segued right into their back to the days when teams had to make it out of their first-round series. division first in the playoffs, when the divisions were more Who, in the spring of 2021, cares about the Predators or the than a way to organize the standings. If there was a lot of Lightning or the Panthers? More than there would be fighting in the old Norris Division, it’s because those teams otherwise, that’s for sure. really hated each other after eliminating one another year after year. Whatever is going to happen next already has a head start. CAROLINA HURRICANES NEWS CLIPPINGS • May 13, 2021 Stanley Cup tiers: Anonymous exec, coach, scout and player rate every playoff team Craig Custance The exec: “They’re the scariest team. I don’t trust their goaltending. To me, he’s a product of how they play and how This has the potential to be really fascinating. The good they are. But I’ve seen them when they’re rolling and tournament for the Stanley Cup begins and we really have they’re scary.” no sense of how some of these teams match up against one another. Sure, we know that Connor McDavid and Auston The coach: “Everyone says the same thing about them — Matthews are super good. But it’d be great if, you know, they can their goaltending hold up? But their numbers are top five had played at least one game this season against any of the in the league. They’ve played extremely well. Health is a league’s top 10 defensemen. More than ever, coaches, question in any position, it’s not something you can plan for. players and executives have been laser-focused on the This team has such dynamic speed and talent, they’re a (Tier division they’re competing against on a nightly basis. 1) all day long. They have special players at just about every position. They transition the puck so quick, they attack so “This is going to be different,” said one NHL coach this week. quick. If somebody gets them out some way, it’s a minimum “We know each other so well, you’re going to have to get to six or seven games.” know some other teams and the nuances of how you beat certain teams. The pregame meetings we have now (against Carolina Hurricanes division opponents) are almost pointless at this point. The Average rating: 1.3 players should be able to run them now.” This team has skill, depth, coaching and complete buy-in It makes 2021 unique. And harder to predict. And a ton of from the players. One concern that surfaced multiple times fun. For the third consecutive postseason, we’ve assembled was whether or not they have the physicality to grind through a panel to make some sense of it all. Our anonymous panel a tough series against a bigger team. But mostly, people includes a current NHL player, coach, executive, scout and really like the Hurricanes.