Does a quick first round boost the Hurricanes’ Stanley Cup chances?

The Carolina Hurricanes dispatched the Ottawa Senators with ease in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, sweeping them while holding them to just five goals. It was thought to be a tough series for Carolina, but it proved to be a much simpler task than expected.

But now that they have one of the harder parts of their playoff run out of the way and some time to rest, have the Canes’ Stanley Cup chances increased? Tyler Yaremchuk and Carter Hutton talked about how Carolina’s sweep over the Sens may give them an easier trip to the Stanley Cup Final.

Tyler Yaremchuk: When you start to look ahead for [the Hurricanes], they roll through Ottawa and everyone thought that that was going to be a tough seven-game series. And then round two now, they’re going to get either Pittsburgh or Philly, looking like Philly. No reason to think they can’t handle Philly the same way they just handled Ottawa. I don’t think those two teams are in entirely different classes or anything like that. And then you could look at them potentially getting to a conference final here, and get a Buffalo or a Tampa Bay or a Montreal who just ran through a gauntlet of beating the hell out of each other.

I might put them at 60-70% to make the Stanley Cup Final right now, even though round one’s not done yet.

Carter Hutton: I think that is the important factor here. Winning their division and getting that draw just holds a lot of value. Where you can get in and realistically they’re probably going to play the Philadelphia Flyers, which you’d think it would favor them.

Again, the x-factor for me is going to be the offense that they can create outside of Stankoven, outside of Hall. Sebastian Aho had three, but we haven’t seen from Seth Jarvis. They need to create more offense. I think that’s going to be the biggest question mark as they start to go.

Defensively, they are very fun to watch. And I don’t know if other people feel this way watching their games. They just seem bigger and rangier in their D-zone. There’s just absolutely no time and space. And it’s different on a power play where you need to make a quick play because someone’s closing. But defensively, it feels like there’s never any time and space and you have to make a major offensive play or someone has to get lost to really create anything.

I think that’s a credit to the way they play in the D-zone. I look at Jordan Staal. I think he’s been a big piece defensively on the penalty kill. He just takes up so much space. Slavin’s been unbelievable. These are big factors and they’re playing a great brand of hockey, which is great.

You can watch the full episode here…