{"id":605030,"date":"2026-04-15T05:36:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T05:36:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/605030\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T05:36:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T05:36:15","slug":"ottawa-senators-to-play-carolina-hurricanes-in-1st-round-of-playoffs-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/605030\/","title":{"rendered":"Ottawa Senators to play Carolina Hurricanes in 1st round of playoffs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/a\/assets\/texttospeech.svg\" alt=\"Text to Speech Icon\" width=\"44\" height=\"44\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Listen to this article<\/p>\n<p>Estimated 2 minutes<\/p>\n<p>The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Two hockey players push each other during a game.\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1776231374_878_default.jpg\" style=\"aspect-ratio:1.4996938150642989\" data-cy=\"image-img\"\/>Ottawa Senators winger Fabian Zetterlund, left, and Carolina Hurricane William Carrier battle for position on Feb. 3, 2026. (James Guillory\/Imagn Images\/Reuters)<\/p>\n<p>The top team in the NHL&#8217;s Eastern Conference now awaits the Ottawa Senators in the first round of the playoffs.<\/p>\n<p>Boston&#8217;s win on Tuesday means Ottawa will head to Raleigh, N.C., to play the Carolina Hurricanes.<\/p>\n<p>Carolina is making its eighth straight playoff appearance under coach and former player Rod Brind&#8217;Amour. The Hurricanes have lost in the conference final three times in that span.<\/p>\n<p>Carolina headed into Tuesday with seven 20-goal scorers on their roster compared to Ottawa&#8217;s five, but the Senators&#8217; top scorer Tim St\u00fctzle had them all beat with 34 goals prior to his team&#8217;s final game of the regular season on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>Carolina&#8217;s goaltending this season has been a near-even split between 27-year-old rookie Brandon Bussi and 36-year-old veteran Frederik Anderson. Ottawa has favoured 32-year-old Linus Ullmark on either side of<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/sports\/hockey\/nhl\/ullmark-overcomes-emotions-devils-winning-return-9.7069688\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"> his mental health leave.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Bussi and Ullmark have near-identical save percentages of .892 and .891, just below league average.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"A hockey player comes to a sudden stop right in front of an opposing goalie during a game.\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1776231375_901_default.jpg\" style=\"aspect-ratio:1.5\" data-cy=\"image-img\"\/>Ottawa&#8217;s Dylan Cozens has his shot blocked by Carolina goaltender Brandon Bussi on Feb. 3, 2026. (Karl DeBlaker\/The Associated Press)<\/p>\n<p>As a team, the Canes had scored 19 more goals than Ottawa this season, and allowed six fewer. Their 294 goals for is second only to Colorado.<\/p>\n<p>When it comes to more advanced statistics, the gap between the two teams narrows. <a href=\"https:\/\/moneypuck.com\/teams.htm\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Moneypuck&#8217;s expected goals metric<\/a>, or the quality of their unblocked shots for and against, has the two teams ranked second and third in the 32-team league.<\/p>\n<p>A playoff 1st<\/p>\n<p>Ottawa has won one of its three meetings with Carolina this season, with one of those losses coming in overtime.<\/p>\n<p>The Senators and Hurricanes have never met in the playoffs.<\/p>\n<p>As the lower seed, Ottawa will host games 3, 4 and if necessary Game 6. <\/p>\n<p>The schedule has not been released, but <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/senators\/news\/sens-playoff-tickets-on-sale-thursday-to-season-seat-members-friday-to-public\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">tickets go on sale Thursday morning<\/a> for Senators season ticket holders and Friday for the general public.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 2 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":605031,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194295],"tags":[49,48,20739],"class_list":["post-605030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ottawa","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-ottawa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=605030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/605031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=605030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=605030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=605030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}