The Carolina Hurricanes "Cakewalk" To The Eastern Conference Final

The Carolina Hurricanes are the first team to advance to the conference finals this year, completing back-to-back sweeps over the Ottawa Senators and Philadelphia Flyers.

To sweep any team is hard, but to sweep two in succession is virtually unheard of, especially in a sport like hockey and in a league with as much parity as the NHL.

However, there's been quite a few narratives floated around about how the Canes simply had a "cakewalk" schedule.

Sure, the team didn't have to face any of the narrative darlings that usually dominate postseason discussions such as the Tampa Bay Lightning (who lost in the first round for the fourth straight year), but it isn't like the two teams they faced were pushovers.

In fact, Ottawa and Philadelphia finished the regular season ranked ninth and 10th in the league respectively, with a combined total of 197 points.

And perhaps a lot of the disparagement for Carolina's first two opponents also comes from the fact that they barely made the playoff cut.

But isn't how a team performs heading into the postseason a better litmus test than looking at the season as a whole?

Because if we look from the Olympic break to the final day of the regular season, the Flyers (37) had the third most points in the league and the Senators had the fifth (36).

Furthermore, in that span, no team allowed less goals than the Flyers (35) and the Senators weren't far behind at seventh (44) and both teams were also in the top-seven for expected goals against and high-danger chances against.

That means that heading into the playoffs, there were very few teams who were playing better defensive hockey than the two teams the Hurricanes faced.

During that stretch, both Dan Vladar and Linus Ullmark also had save percentages over 0.900, which was well above the league average for the season (0.889).

They were also both in the top-20 amongst goalies for goals saved above expected in the final 20 games, combining to stop 13.3 goals above expected.

Even further, Ottawa was one of the better special teams teams coming out of the Olympic break, with the sixth-ranked penalty kill (82.4%) and the eighth best power play (26%).

Those don't sound like cakewalks to me.

Perhaps people should be more willing to give the Hurricanes a little more credit.

Carolina is a machine. They know what they want to do and they're going to execute that same game plan every single time.

They dare their opponents to try and stop them and, so far, nobody's been able to.

The Hurricanes have been a defensive juggernaut, allowing just 50.1 chances, 22.18 scoring chances and 9.77 high danger chances against per 60.

On the flip side, no team is creating more chances, scoring chances and high-danger chances than them either.

They have the highest expected goals rate in the entire postseason and that isn't just from an endless cycle of low percentage shots.

They've been downright lethal off of the rush and most of their offensive generation comes from those transitional chances.

But it doesn't end there.

In goal, no netminder has been better than Frederik Andersen, who's pacing the league in wins (8), save percentage (0.950), shutouts (2) and goals saved above expected (11.2).

And you want to guess at who's number 2 and 3 for GSAX?

Dan Vladar (8.5) and Linus Ullmark (6.7), so that's perhaps why Carolina hasn't been as able to run up the score quite as some of the other playoff teams.

Oh and how about that penalty kill?

Carolina has been far and away the best shorthanded team in the entire postseason, allowing virtually nothing.

They don't allow any easy entries and their relentless pressure gives opponents no team to operate.

Despite being the most shorthanded team all playoffs, including nearly three and half more minutes at 5v3 than any other team, the Canes have allowed just two goals against while shorthanded, while scoring one themselves.

This isn't to say that the Canes are going to cruise their way all the way to a Stanley Cup. I mean, this is hockey after all. They could get swept themselves in the Eastern Conference Final.

But I just think people should be putting a little more respect on the Hurricanes and how good they've been through the first two rounds, because until Saturday, back-to-back sweeps simply hadn't happened in over 50 years.

Maybe, just maybe, this team is actually good.