Welcome to the Eastern Conference Final, where the Hurricanes show up 8-0 and the Canadiens show up grateful to still have a pulse. Carolina swept the first two rounds, the first team ever to do that. Montreal needed all 14 games to drag itself past Tampa and Buffalo, capped by a Game 7 OT winner Monday night.
The rest gap is the storyline whether you like it or not. The Canes haven't played a real game since May 9 — that's 11 days of practice, optional skates, and trying to keep an edge against nothing. The Habs have been in dogfights for three straight weeks. Conventional wisdom says rust beats rust, but the postseason is littered with teams that lost their fastball waiting around.
In net, this is a mismatch on paper. Frederik Andersen has started all 8 Carolina games and posted a 1.12 GAA with a .950 save percentage and 2 shutouts. Jakub Dobes has been fine for Montreal — 2.52 GAA, .910 — but fine isn't going to be enough if Carolina's forecheck does to the Habs D what it did to New Jersey and Philly.
Montreal's path is Lane Hutson and the kids. The rookie defenseman is leading the team in playoff scoring with 14 points in 14 games, Suzuki has 13, and Caufield and Slafkovsky each have 9. If this turns into a track meet the Habs can hang. The problem is Carolina doesn't do track meets — they suffocate you 200 feet at a time and wait for you to break.
- Injured ReservePatrik Laine RW — Laine (abdomen) is practicing Saturday in a non-contact jersey, Renaud Lavoie of TVA Sports reports.
Pinnacle has the Canes at -197 on the moneyline with a fair-prob of about 65%, which feels roughly right. Carolina is the better team, rested, at home, with the hotter goalie. Montreal's bet is that 11 days off bites harder than a Game 7 hangover, and that Dobes can steal one early to make the Canes squirm. Stranger things have happened — see also: every other round of these playoffs.