Boston Bruins Playoff Preview: Carolina Hurricanes

Well Hockey fans, it’s that time of year again! The part of the year where skate straps are tightened and tape jobs take longer than the traffic at rush hour. The Stanley Cup playoffs are the best part of the NHL season. The top 8 teams from each conference compete to have their names etched in silver. Where legacies are forged and legends are made. The playoffs are where the biggest stories come from. With these stories come the previews, so here is the Boston Bruins Playoff Preview.

The Boston Bruins will most likely start their playoff journey against the Metro Division Champion Carolina Hurricanes. The Bruins and Hurricanes met 3 times this season with the Hurricanes sweeping the series with a margin of victory of 16-1. Although it might seem alarming, there are some caveats to some of the games. Bruins legend Tuukka Rask had attempted to make a comeback for one more season. Rask started in net for the B’s when they took on the Hurricanes on January 18. In his short outing, he let in 5 goals on 12 shots before being replaced by goalie Linus Ullmark.  The Bruins ended up losing that game 7-1.

The Hurricanes have been great this year. They won the Metropolitan Division and will end the season with at least 114 points. They have an 80-point scorer in Sebastian Aho and a top goalie in Frederik Andersen who posted the league’s second-best goals-against average. Although Andersen might not be available to start the series, it is becoming more likely that he makes a return sometime in the first round. The 32-year-old is 3-0 in all of his meetings against Boston this year posting a .990 save percentage and 2 shutouts.

The Bruins did not have much success against their first-round opponents during the regular season but they have had a lot of success against them in the playoffs. The Bruins are 8-1 in their last two meetings with Carolina in the playoffs. Andersen not being available for the beginning of the series could help the Bruins a lot in this series. Especially since the Bruins goalie tandem is riding a string of good performances. Linus Ullmark is in top form having won 8 of his last 12 starts posting an 8-2 record and a .925 save percentage.

The Bruins, despite having their top guys returning from injury, have only scored 1 power-play goal this month. Hopefully getting one means that the floodgates open. Topline forward Brad Marchand ended his 10-game goal drought by notching an empty netter in the 4-2 victory against Florida on Tuesday where their stifling defense did not allow the Panthers a single inch of room.

This team has seen some relative success going 8-5 in their last 13 games. It can be argued that if the Bruins were not short-handed for a few weeks that the record would be better. The Bruins seem to be hitting their stride right before the playoffs. If they can re-capture what they had prior to all the injuries at the beginning of the month they could shock some people.

This team is not the same one that the Hurricanes saw in January since then, they’ve added a top-4 D-man in Hampus Lindholm, Both goalies have been playing well and Forward Jake DeBrusk has found his game again after signing a contract extension. And the roster isn’t riddled with a COVID outbreak forcing the Bruins to fill the roster with AHL players.

The two teams are separated by 9 points in the standings meaning this series should be closer than many expect. This year marks the first time in NHL history that all 8 playoff teams in a conference scored 100+ points. Safe to say that this year’s Prince of Whale’s Trophy is going to be the hardest one to win yet, and that’s not even the final goal!

The Bruins just have to stick to their philosophy of suffocating defense and continue to put shots on net. Make their opponents work and tire them out. If they play their game it would not be a surprise to see the Bruins pull out the series win. Prediction: Bruins in 7.