For longtime Hurricanes TV analyst\u00a0Tripp Tracy, this group has been physically tougher to play against but it also has gotten tougher mentally.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know they\u2019ve had two sweeps, but the four games they\u2019ve won on the road, they\u2019ve had to kill off a 5-on-3 in every one of those road games,\u201d he said. \u201cThe fourth game against Ottawa, a very good Ottawa team in my opinion, when things got dicey, I think previous teams may have gone quietly into the afternoon and regrouped for Game 5. Not this team. That\u2019s a combination of good physical and mental toughness.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a combination the 2005-06 team had as well. Mark\u00a0Recchi, a forward who was acquired by Carolina in a trade with the Pittsburgh Penguins on March 9, 2006, and had 16 points (seven goals, nine assists) in 25 playoff games to help the Hurricanes win the Cup that season, sees other similarities.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the D-core you could probably say, (Jaccob) Slavin\u2019s a great shutdown defenseman but there\u2019s no superstar. We were similar in \u201906,\u201d Recchi said of a group that included Bret Hedican, Aaron Ward, Frantisek Kaberle and Mike Commodore. \u201cIf you looked at our D-core, we didn\u2019t have a superstar. We had just a bunch of great defensemen, really, really solid defensemen who understood what their roles were. It was easy to buy into it and they just did a terrific job.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just didn\u2019t have a superstar like most teams have nowadays, a superstar in front, a superstar on D. Everybody just did their job, did it very well and pulled it together and we win.\u201d<\/p>\n
Former forward Matt Cullen, who played for the Hurricanes in 2005-06 and again from 2007-10, sees the two teams differently. This one has more players who have come up through the ranks to lead Carolina to several playoff runs, including forwards Sebastian Aho<\/a> and Andrei Svechnikov<\/a> as well as Jaccob Slavin<\/a>, who were drafted and developed by the organization.<\/p>\n Cullen also credits this Carolina team\u2019s identity, which has been built by coach and former forward Rod\u00a0Brind\u2019Amour, who was named captain of the Hurricanes prior to 2005-06.<\/p>\n \u201cThe way Rod coaches them, the way they play, you see a team take on the persona of their coach, and I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve never seen a team more like that,\u201d he said. \u201cThe hunger they play with, the relentless attitude they play with; it points to Rod and that\u2019s the sign of a good leader and a good coach. It\u2019s such a hard style of hockey, it\u2019s just relentless, in your face, and they have a lot of skill to go along with it. They\u2019re one of my more favorite teams to watch.\u201d<\/p>\n So now, these Hurricanes face the youthful\u00a0Canadiens, with an average age of 25.8 years. They\u2019re coming off a riveting seven-game, second-round series against the Buffalo Sabres, whom they eliminated with a 3-2 overtime win on Monday. They\u2019re the youngest team to advance to a conference final since 1993, when the Canadiens won the Cup with the same average age.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, they have experience. Eric Staal, who played for Carolina from 2003-16, also went to the Cup Final with Montreal in 2020-21 with current Canadiens, including forwards Nick Suzuki<\/a>, Josh Anderson<\/a>, Phillip Danault<\/a> and Cole Caufield<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019ve got experience, they\u2019ve got guys who understand what it takes to make it to the Final, so (the Hurricanes) are going to have to be smart with how they play and level-headed with emotions, which I know both teams will do,\u201d said\u00a0Staal, a former forward who is the older brother of current Hurricanes captain Jordan Staal<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just going to be a competitive series. Carolina needs to play its style, be on the attack, be aggressive, be in their face, make life really, really difficult on the skill of Montreal and give themselves the best chance.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For longtime Hurricanes TV analyst\u00a0Tripp Tracy, this group has been physically tougher to play against but it also…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":682491,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-682490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=682490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682490\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/682491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=682490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=682490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=682490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}