by Garrison Wester
The Carolina Hurricanes finished the regular season in first place in the Metro division and because of that, they got the number one overall seed in their part of the playoff section.
The Canes came into the playoffs a little banged up, including their goalie Frederik Anderson. In the first round, they faced the Boston Bruins. The series played out in such a way that whomever was home in the game won, but no one saw this coming.
Both teams were playing very physically and were careless at times during the games. This caused there to be a lot of penalties. There were also some dirty plays, and even though Carolina won the series, they were banged up, and one of their star players is out for a while. Jordan Martinook was the player who was injured. Canes coach, Rod Brind'amour, said it does not look good ,so he might miss some valuable playoff time with his lower-body injury.
The first two games were in Raleigh, and the Canes won both of those games in a dominating fashion. In the first game, Carolina won 5 to 1 and in the second game, they won 5 to 2. After those two games, most every sports analysts were saying how the Bruins didn’t even stand a chance, but the Bruins proved them wrong.
Games three and four were in Boston and the Bruins completely changed their identity and played really solid hockey on both ends of the ice. It seemed like they were shutting down every opportunity that Carolina was getting. The Bruins won game three 4 to 2 and game four 5 to 2.
The next game was to be played in Raleigh and no one really had a good idea of what would happen. Just like games 1 and 2, the Hurricanes came out early and took control of the game. They ended up winning game five 5 to 1.
After the Canes won this game many people started to predict that they would win the series but they didn’t know if it would be game six or seven.
The Bruins won game six in their arena, and they won with a score of 5 to 2.
Game seven was played in Raleigh and that game was insane. The Hurricanes opened up the first two periods with a 3 to 1 lead, and everyone thought that the game was getting out of hand for the Bruins.
Within the final three minutes of the third period the Bruins pulled their goalie so they could have another attacker on the ice to give them a better chance to score. They scored a goal with a little under thirty seconds left in the game, and all of a sudden, they had a little life.
The final twenty seconds of the game were insanely crazy, and if it weren’t for the Canes goalie, Anti Raanta, the game would have gone to overtime. He made the most clutch save of his career, and it was enough to send the Carolina Hurricanes to the next round of the playoffs.
In my opinion, the Canes MVP for the first round was Jordan Staal, because he always came out and set the tone of the game and he always won the faceoffs in the valuable parts of the game when they mattered.
In the second round they will face the New York Rangers.
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