{"id":1792,"date":"2026-05-29T14:09:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T14:09:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/raleighmovingnews.com\/?p=1792"},"modified":"2026-05-29T14:09:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T14:09:19","slug":"hurricanes-have-gotten-to-their-smothering-game-in-moving-within-a-win-of-stanley-cup-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/raleighmovingnews.com\/?p=1792","title":{"rendered":"Hurricanes have gotten to their smothering game in moving within a win of Stanley Cup Final"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) \u2014 Jordan Staal looks at the Carolina Hurricanes\u2019 on-their-game play as being part of a machine.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/raleighmovingnews.com\/?p=1790\">Marta Kostyuk extends clay winning streak to 15 matches to reach fourth round at French Open<\/a><\/p>\n<p>One that keeps rolling through its process, over and over, in smothering scoring chances and keeping the pressure on an opponent.<\/p>\n<p>It has them\u00a0within a win of reaching their first Stanley Cup Final\u00a0in two decades entering Friday night\u2019s home Game 5 against the Montreal Canadiens in the Eastern Conference Final.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRight now, when you get into these grooves, it\u2019s just kind of the machine,\u201d the captain told reporters Thursday morning in Montreal. \u201cYou just kind of want to keep it running, keep doing what you\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t think the guys will waver too far from the next shift, the next play, the hyper-focus that we\u2019re on.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Eastern Conference\u2019s top seed started this series with a jarringly horrid start after going 11 days between playoff rounds \u2014 the longest postseason layoff in more than a century \u2014 and promptly allowing four goals in the first 11-plus minutes\u00a0of a 6-2 loss.<\/p>\n<p>Ever since, though, the Hurricanes have gotten more and more to their preferred style that helped them\u00a0sweep through Ottawa and Philadelphia in the first two playoff rounds. And that has helped them grab control of the series from the on-the-rise Canadiens who arrived at this round earlier than some expected.<\/p>\n<p>Carolina won a pair of 3-2 overtime games,\u00a0first at home\u00a0and then\u00a0on the road, then dominated from the puck drop of Wednesday\u2019s 4-0 road romp that pushed the Hurricanes to a 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven series.<\/p>\n<p>The Hurricanes are getting the puck into the offensive zone, using the aggressive forecheck to keep it there and pressure the Canadiens while giving talented goaltender Jakub Dobes a lot of work. The Game 4 win offered a withering case study, with Carolina scoring three goals in a nearly three-minute span of the first period then shutting off everything as the Canadiens tried to regroup.<\/p>\n<p>It wasn\u2019t perfect. Notably there was a nearly two-minute 5-on-3 opportunity in which the Hurricanes didn\u2019t put a shot on Dobes with a chance to knock out the Canadiens midway through the second period.<\/p>\n<p>Not that their coach was dwelling on it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m not pointing at any negative on this game, no chance,\u201d Rod Brind\u2019Amour said Thursday morning.<\/p>\n<p>Now the pressure is fully on the Canadiens, who battled through two long series that included Game 7 road wins\u00a0at Tampa Bay\u00a0and\u00a0Buffalo\u00a0while the Hurricanes started 8-0 in the postseason.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/raleighmovingnews.com\/?p=1788\">Kyle Busch\u2019s death certificate: He had pneumonia for \u2018days to weeks\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Montreal hadn\u2019t lost consecutive games since mid-March and hadn\u2019t lost three straight games since a five-game skid in November.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cObviously everybody knows where we\u2019re at, we do,\u201d forward Cole Caufield said Thursday after the team arrived in North Carolina.<\/p>\n<p>The Canadiens pounced\u00a0on the slow-starting Hurricanes in Game 1\u00a0by repeatedly getting clean breakouts and breakaways with skaters hitting full speed as they blew unchecked through the neutral zone.<\/p>\n<p>But as this series has worn on, the Canadiens have looked a half-step \u2014 sometimes more \u2014 behind.<\/p>\n<p>Montreal defenseman Alexandre Carrier said Thursday the focus is down to small details such as winning more 1-on-1 battles, and then building from there to hopefully stop the Hurricanes\u2019 push.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a big opportunity,\u201d Carrier said. \u201cWe\u2019re not dead yet. So it\u2019s important to really be excited for tomorrow and confident. And I\u2019m excited to see what we can do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Hurricanes have more than double the shots on goal (108-43) in the past three games. And while some of that is due to a style that naturally leans into shot volume, the Hurricanes have steadily tightened their defensive grip on a skilled Canadiens team.<\/p>\n<p>The Hurricanes took a 19-3 edge in shots on goal in the third period, keeping the Canadiens pinned in their defensive zone while finishing with a total of 18 shots. That marked the second time in three games that Carolina had more shots on goal in a period than Montreal had for the game, the other in the first period of Game 3 (16-13).<\/p>\n<p>Carolina had a 42-15 edge in high-danger chances for Games 2, 3 and 4, according to Natural Stat Trick.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe talk about all the time defending as a five-man unit,\u201d Carolina defenseman Jaccob Slavin said. \u201cAnd our forwards are doing a great job of helping out with that, and allowing us to be tight-gapped, allowing us to be aggressive, allowing us to play the way we have to play.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/raleighmovingnews.com\/?p=1786\">New poll shows tight GOP race for South Carolina governor<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) \u2014 Jordan Staal looks at the Carolina Hurricanes&#8217; on-their-game play as being part of a machine. One that keeps rolling through its process, over and over, in smothering scoring chances and keeping the pressure on an opponent. It has them\u00a0within a win of reaching their first Stanley Cup Final\u00a0in two decades entering [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1791,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Hurricanes have gotten to their smothering game in moving within a win of Stanley Cup Final - Raleigh Moving News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/raleighmovingnews.com\/?p=1792\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Hurricanes have gotten to their smothering game in moving within a win of Stanley Cup Final - Raleigh Moving News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) \u2014 Jordan Staal looks at the Carolina Hurricanes&#8217; on-their-game play as being part of a machine. One that keeps rolling through its process, over and over, in smothering scoring chances and keeping the pressure on an opponent. 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