Come this weekend, fewer NHL teams will be skating in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Two pairings are planned for Round 2 of the playoffs, before the puck drops on Friday night’s games. In the Western Conference, the Colorado Avalanche and Minnesota Wild will be skating for the right to appear in the Conference Final.
The Avalanche took four straight games from the Los Angeles Kings in Round 1 to advance in the tournament. The Wild, with a 5–2 victory over the Dallas Stars in Game 6 of the opening round on Thursday, earned a Round 2 playoff berth.
On Saturday at 8 p.m. EDT in Raleigh, North Carolina’s Lenovo Center, Round 2 of the Eastern Conference playoffs begins between the Philadelphia Flyers and Carolina Hurricanes. The best-of-seven series can be seen on ABC TV. This will be the first head-to-head playoff series between these two teams.
Carolina advances to Round 2 after eliminating the Ottawa Senators in Round 1 in four games. The Flyers defeated the Pittsburgh Penguins in six games. The 1–0 series-clinching win for the Flyers came at 17:32 in overtime on Wednesday in Philadelphia by defenseman Cam York.
Although York was the one who scored the game-winning goal, the defenseman, while speaking to NHL.com after the game, offered high praise for Flyers’ goalie Dan Vladar, who he believed was the difference-maker at Xfinity Mobile Arena.
“It just felt like nothing was going to get past Vladdi,” York said. “I think we all felt that, and we knew that we just needed one good, decent look and we were able to capitalize. He was unbelievable for us tonight, just so many Grade-A chances that they had that he just stood tall for us. I can’t say enough about him.”
There were 74 combined shots-on-goal between the Flyers and Penguins in Game 6. Vladar blocked 42 shots en route to registering the shutout.
Both the Flyers and Hurricanes play out of the Metropolitan Division. Carolina was not only the top seed in the Eastern Conference in the regular season with a leading 113 points, they also finished the regular season as the top ranked team in the Metropolitan Division. Philadelphia was the No. 3 seed in their division.
Flyers’ Travis Sanheim is excited to get Round 2 underway, and he told NHL.com on Thursday after the win over Pittsburgh that he and his teammates are quite familiar with their next opponents.
“They’re a really good team, play with a lot of pace,” Flyers defenseman Travis Sanheim said. “We had really good games with them all year. I think we went into extra time each time we played them. Really excited about the challenge. Going to enjoy this and then move on tomorrow.”
Sanheim, indeed, has good memories in recalling the four games played between the Flyers and Carolina during the regular season. The Hurricanes went 3–0–1 against their division rival. Three games were decided by shootouts, and one of Carolina’s victories, 4–3, came in overtime.
Carolina, who won their franchise’s only Stanley Cup championship in 2006 has exited the playoffs, in no later than the third round, during the past seven seasons. The Flyers last sipped champagne from the Stanley Cup in 1975. Qualifying for the playoffs this year for Philadelphia breaks a five-year drought in postseason appearances.
Carolina’s general manager Eric Tulsky said to The Athletic on Friday he credited his team’s advancement into the playoffs as a result of a total team effort. While Hurricanes’ defenseman Jaccob Slavin was sidelined for more than a half season, Tulsky is proud of how the team responded.
“Credit the players who were stepping in when he was out,” Tulsky said. “And we had other defensemen out too, and we had guys coming up from the AHL and playing well and keeping our heads above water. They made it so that we could take a long-term view on it.”
Slavin battled both an upper-body injury and lower-body injury, from the start of the season in October.
There are three other NHL playoff games scheduled for Friday. All are Game 6 in their series. The Buffalo Sabres are at Boston’s TD Garden to skate against the hometown Bruins. Buffalo leads the series 3–2. In Montreal, the Canadiens look to freeze out the Tampa Bay Lightning, as they are up 3 games to 2 in their series. The two teams that will emerge from these two series will battle for an opportunity in the Eastern Conference Final against the winner of the Carolina-Philadelphia series.
Friday’s late game (10 p.m. ET) out West is between the Vegas Golden Knights and Utah Mammoth at Salt Lake City’s Delta Center. A win for Vegas would send them to Round 2 for a best-of-seven series with the Anaheim Ducks.
The Stanley Cup Final is scheduled to begin in early June, after the conference finals, and a possible Game 7 is planned for not later than June 21.
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