Is Hurricanes’ luck finally turning? Sunday’s NHL Game 7 shockers are a positive sign
The landscape of the entire NHL playoff field was inescapably and almost incomprehensibly altered Sunday night thanks to a pair of unlikely Game 7 results, and you can argue no one benefited more from the upheaval than the Carolina Hurricanes.
The runaway best team in the NHL this season, the Stanley Cup favorite since December, the Hurricanes’ perennial postseason partner — those Boston Bruins — are out, eliminated by Paul Maurice’s Florida Panthers.
The defending champions, perhaps not at the same level this season but still always a threat — the Colorado Avalanche — are out as well, eliminated by Ron Francis’ Seattle Kraken.
And suddenly, the Hurricanes’ path forward looks considerably smoother should they advance out of the second round — no easy task to be sure against the New Jersey Devils, for the fifth time, but one we may potentially look back down the road as the toughest they faced.
The elimination of the Bruins and Avalanche give the Hurricanes a 27 percent chance to win the Stanley Cup in analyst Micah Blake McCurdy’s ratings at hockeyviz.com, a figure that went up only a hair after the Bruins lost. Only the Dallas Stars even come close at 17 percent. That’s merely the output of one man’s model, but it certainly suggests a degree of faith in the Hurricanes that the betting odds don’t reflect.
Because Las Vegas, knowing exactly who the Hurricanes are still missing, isn’t so sure. The Hurricanes were the fifth choice — at roughly 7-to-1 odds — on Monday at all five of the major U.S. sports betting sites, behind the Toronto Maple Leafs (7-2), Edmonton Oilers (4-1), Stars (11-2) and Vegas Golden Knights (6-1).
Odds aside, the Hurricanes will still have home ice the rest of the way, which given their home-road disparity the past five years — a dynamic that did show signs of fading in their six-game win over the New York Islanders in the first round — is a huge bonus.
With the far-and-away best team in the NHL already at home, with the defending champions done defending, two of the teams best positioned to win the Stanley Cup are out. The Hurricanes, battered and beleaguered as they may be, are in position to benefit.
The old rule in the NCAA tournament — and without reseeding between rounds, it also applies to the NHL — is that bracket luck is real. Sometimes, it’s not who you beat, it’s who you didn’t have to play. Thanks to upsets elsewhere, Connecticut — a No. 4 seed — only had to beat one team with a better seed to win the national title in March. The Huskies essentially played Gonzaga, a first-round game and four second-round games — but that doesn’t take away their rings.
The Hurricanes could potentially play the Islanders, Devils, Panthers and (if the Western Conference completely implodes) Kraken on their way to the Cup. You wouldn’t necessarily look at that path and say the Hurricanes were at a massive talent disadvantage without Max Pacioretty and Andrei Svechnikov and Teuvo Teravainen.
You’d say they played two first-round series and two second-round series, and the first two might be tougher on paper than the last two. The former Hartford Whalers and current UConn Huskies would have a lot in common.
Even if they advance and play the Leafs and Oilers, those are still two teams that were behind the Hurricanes in the standings. The reality is, with Boston gone, there is no favorite. Six of the eight teams remaining finished within six points of each other; the Hurricanes, even without their missing stars, were still first in line behind the Bruins.
They’ve weathered their fair share of bad luck the past few months. Maybe all of this finally represents some good luck.
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This story was originally published May 2, 2023 at 6:15 AM with the headline "Is Hurricanes’ luck finally turning? Sunday’s NHL Game 7 shockers are a positive sign."
