The Carolina Hurricanes enter the Stanley Cup Final on Tuesday with a glowing resume - at 53-22-7 in the regular season, their 113 points were the best in the East and trailed only the Colorado Avalanche across the NHL.
In the playoffs, the Hurricanes have suffered just one loss in the playoffs (in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Final against the Montreal Canadiens) thanks largely to their smothering defensive playstyle.
Meanwhile, their opponent in the Final, the Vegas Golden Knights, won just 39 games in the regular season and finished with 95 points - enough to win a weak Pacific Division in the West, but that point total would have left them outside the playoff picture in the East.
As TSN Hockey Insider Pierre LeBrun recently revealed in a piece on The Athletic, it’s surprisingly the Golden Knights who are favoured in this series around the league.
LeBrun polled coaches and front office executives from across the NHL to ask them who would win the Stanley Cup and why, and 49 of them gave an answer.
In the final tally of the poll, 27 gave their vote to the Golden Knights, while 22 voted for the Hurricanes. Here’s what some of those in favour of the Golden Knights had to say:
“This is a tough one to call, but I’m going to go with Vegas in six games,” said an anonymous coach. “Having 12, 13 players and a coach that have won the Cup before will be huge.”
“I feel like the difference in this series will be the power play, and because of that, I will take Vegas,” another coach said. “Their top guys drawing penalties can be the difference if they get a lot of chances on the power play. Other than that, tough to call this one.”
“I like Vegas. I think they have more scoring and size,” said a third coach. “It’s going to come down to the goalies. I like [Carter] Hart more.”
The Golden Knights built a lot of momentum in the Western Conference Final, when they swept the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Colorado Avalanche in dominant fashion. The performance in that series by Vegas reminded people of the Golden Knights team that won the Stanley Cup just three seasons ago - and seven players from that team are still on the roster this season.
The Golden Knights made a surprising move by firing head coach Bruce Cassidy in April and replacing him with John Tortorella - and the team has an outstanding 19-4-1 record with Tortorella behind the bench (7-0-1 in the final eight games of the regular season, 12-4 in the playoffs).
The Hurricanes have looked unstoppable for most of the playoffs. Their hard-checking playstyle overwhelmed the Canadiens in the Eastern Conference Final, holding the NHL’s seventh-highest scoring team in the regular season (3.40 goals per game) to 11 goals in five games - just five over the last four games of the series, all wins by the Hurricanes. Canadiens forward Joe Veleno said between Games 3 and 4 of that series that it felt like the Hurricanes were playing with “six or seven” players on the ice at times.
“The entire team playing like they won’t be denied,” said an anonymous coach who picked the Hurricanes to win the series. “The system and puck pressure they play with has always been so hard to play against, and now that system looks like it is operating at an even higher level.”
“Both good teams, no weaknesses,” added another coach. “I’m taking Carolina because they’ve been the most consistent team all season. And I love their penalty kill.”
“Carolina,” added an anonymous executive. “They have taken a page from the Florida Panthers and mastered the high flip from the D zone to the middle of the neutral zone.”
As LeBrun noted, the Hurricanes are the first team to advance to the Stanley Cup Final with fewer than two losses since the NHL went to all best-of-seven series in 1987. It will be hard to imagine them slowing up now.
But given how difficult those around the league found picking against Vegas to be, this series may end up being an unpredictable classic.
