Hurricanes confident in play style: 'People are confusing boring with hard to play against'

The Carolina Hurricanes have been watching the series between the Florida Panthers and Toronto Maple Leafs, waiting to see who their opponent will be in the Eastern Conference Final.

After Florida dismantled the Maple Leafs 6-1 in Game 7, the Hurricanes are raring to go after a long rest period.

Carolina eliminated the Washington Capitals in five games, taking the series in Washington on Thursday, and have been listening intently to the fan reaction surrounding the team.

The team, in a post on X, fired back at the discourse amongst hockey fans that the team is 'boring.'

Carolina's players are taking notice of it too.

“You read it everywhere now and you’re like, ‘OK, we play a high-paced, puck pressure game with a lot of shots,” top-pair defenseman Jaccob Slavin said. “So if people find that boring, then I don’t know. I don’t think it’s a boring game. I think it’s hard to play against. I don’t think it’s boring, though.

"I think people are confusing boring with hard to play against.”

Whether it's boring or not, the Hurricanes' style is working wonders in the playoffs so far, dispatching the New Jersey Devils in five games before doing the same to the East's top team in the Capitals. They ride an 8-2 record in the playoffs into a matchup against the Panthers.

Seth Jarvis, who has tallied four goals and 10 points in 10 games so far, took particular exception to the comparisons to the recently-eliminated Maple Leafs.

“I feel if this was Toronto or a different team shutting teams down, they’d be getting praised out of this world,” Jarvis said. “But it’s just the way it is because we’re not Toronto, and we’re totally fine with it. We don’t think we’re boring at all.

“I mean, we create plenty of offence, maybe a little different than other teams. But scoring goals is scoring goals, and that’s something that we’ve gotten better at and started to do more consistently, especially in the playoffs now. I mean, I have a blast playing this style.”

The Hurricanes have outscored opponents 34-18 in the playoffs to this point, and Carolina finished 10th in scoring in the regular season - trailing only the Dallas Stars, of teams remaining in the playoffs.

“We’re trying to win hockey games. That’s it. Our style is hard work," forward Sebastian Aho said. "Every team works this time of year and they compete, there’s no question about that. But I think we’re willing to work our tails off for each other. Our base is hard work — to be the hardest-working team on the ice every night. But our goal is to hound the puck and wear down opponents offensively. It’s more fun to play in the offensive zone and have a chance to score goals, and that is how we play no matter what people may think.”

This is Carolina's second trip to the Eastern Conference Final in the last three seasons, and they were swept out by the Panthers in this same spot two seasons ago. 

The team scored six goals across the four games, and head coach Rod Brind'Amour was adamant that the series could've gone completely differently at the time.

Now he gets a chance to prove it. Even with the slow start to the year, and the drama surrounding the Mikko Rantanen trade.

“We’ve got a job to do,” Brind’Amour said. “I think from Day 1 of the year, we had this vision of where we want to go. And I think guys have (done) a real good job staying focused on not getting too far ahead. We know it’s still a long way to go. I mean, we’re halfway to that. It’s just understanding where we want to be but understanding how you got to get there.

“Every year is a great opportunity. I mean, we all understand how hard it is. Like, I don’t know that necessarily everyone out there does, but to get to this point is extremely hard to do. I think we all appreciate that. But also you’ve got to take advantage of that opportunity because you don’t know when they’re coming around (again). I think there’s a sense of urgency there on that.”