Joined: May 2018
Posts: 19,134
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If Carolina's depth wakes up, Carolina could sweep this series. When Niederreiter, Trocheck, Staal, Foegele, Martinook, Necas, Williams, Dzingel etc have all fallen silent all it takes is one to wake up. just a secondary scoring threat outside of the big 3. Carolina has the best defense in hockey, I don't think it's particularly close with a team that actively employed Brendan Smith and Marc Staal. Goaltending everyone is glossing over. Shesterkin has been good, Hank has been a god... but do people forget Reimer was a .914 with incredible analytics playing behind a banged-up defense? I think goaltending is closer than people give it credit for, but I'd lean Rangers and fairly so. I think the defense could be more one-sided, nothing against the Rangers. Just when Carolina boasts a D core of Slavin, Pesce, Hamilton, Gardiner, van Riemsdyk, Vatanen, Fleury, Edmundson, Skjei and they have that Jake Bean guy who just won the D man of the year award in the AHL, I don't think anyone holds a candle to them. Upfront is where Carolina wins or loses this series. If Niederreiter is playing like a 20 goal scorer, if Williams continues to play as he did down the stretch, if Foegele goes back to a playoff beast.... then there's every chance Carolina sweep the rangers. At it's best, there are not many teams in the NHL that are better than the Carolina Hurricanes. I would take Carolina in 4, but this really depends on if the offense wakes up.