Carolina Hurricanes: Breaking Down the First Round Playoff Match Ups

The Carolina Hurricanes have five series between them and the Cup

By applying lessons learned from the season series with these four rivals, the Carolina Hurricanes will create a deep playoff run with a first-round victory.

It is almost hockey time ladies and gentlemen, and as we draw closer to the qualifying round of the playoffs it is hard to not imagine what the first round will look like. The four possible teams that the Canes could face in the first round are the Philadelphia Flyers, the Boston Bruins, the Washington Capitals, and the Tampa Bay Lightning.

As I have written about prior, I believe that the Canes are in a prime position to make a deep playoff run. Not only will the team have the returning Dougie Hamilton and debuting Sami Vatanen, the Canes were on a win streak at the pause of the regular season which featured some of the best hockey of the season since the injuries of netminders James Reimer and Petr Mrazek.

Even though the playing field will be leveled as least in part due to the long pause, I believe the Canes can take the desperation and lessons learned from the final regular seasons game to create this playoff run.

First up in the possible first-round series is a familiar foe that the Canes will want to change the narrative from last year.