That the Carolina Hurricanes have eight pucks on their board against no losses may be a commentary on the vulnerabilities (or at least developmental stage) of their first two playoff opponents, but the Canes’ invincibility through two rounds also points to them as a candidate for monkey-wrench team of the playoffs.
They’re the team – or is it the Buffalo Sabres? – which has had their opponents making drastic, in-series, strategic and/or personnel changes their coaching staffs would never have considered over seven months and 82 regular-season games.
The volatility of the playoffs was on display at the end of the 2001-02 season after Robbie Ftorek coached the Boston Bruins to the second-best record in the NHL. But, faced with a Montreal team that exploited the big Bruins’ collective lack of speed, he hastily changed their 1-2-2 forecheck to a left-wing lock, something the Bruins had never attempted and a system that extra defenseman Jeff Norton, who had played the lock with San Jose, told Rink Rap wasn’t being aggressively enough to work. The Bruins lost in six. An assistant coach on that Boston team was Jim Hughes, the father of NHL brothers Jack, Luke and Quinn.
It happens in most playoff seasons, and it’s usually associated more with styIe (or system) of play rather than star power. You turn on their game, watch them go to work, and realize that, while the games are not necessarily slaughters or high-scoring, there is an emerging sense of inevitability, and the only thing that can cloud that is emotional investment either in a particular opponent or via a raw distaste for the team or how they play.
The mid-1970s Flyers, then Islanders, then the 1990s Devils, shared this quality years before their talent got their just due.
It takes a kind of player to play a certain style, and while Denver doesn’t boast the most NHL prospects, it’s amazing how much more NHL the Pioneers’ game looks against the best and brightest in the NCAA’s Frozen Four, before the stars on the teams that cannot solve Denver go to professional hockey.
Thirty-something years ago while watching a worthy opponent I was rooting for but completely confounded by the game Jeff Jackson had Lake Superior State playing, I became fixated on trying to identify this team with this disarming power.
It’s not the same question as to whether a team has the right maturation and roster architecture to win the Stanley Cup, but it runs right alongside that question because the monkey-wrench team of the playoffs can spoil the tournament for a team better equipped to go the four-round distance.
The Bruins were only a few games into the Buffalo series when Coach Marco Sturm had to consider things he was not preparing to do, such as skate a very rusty Jordan Harris )(on the right side no less) in Game 4. It didn’t go well for Harris, no fault of his own. In Games 5 and 6, Harris was joined in the press box by Mason Lohrei, and Henri Jokiharju, who hadn’t played in two weeks (the big win at Columbus) was back in the lineup.
Rink Rap tried to get GM Don Sweeney to address the matter through the prism of a presumed disagreement with Sturm, who had held Jokiharju to half the schedule (41 GP) of the regular season and had not skated him in the slot prepared by theory of his 3x$3M contract extension signed last June.
Andrew Peeke, God bless him, was a warrior for the Bruins over the first half of the schedule, his natural, north-south aggression and compete level winning him Sturm’s trust, the accompanying minutes and, fatefully, some difficult matchups.
For all the discussion about the Bruins’ evolving picture up front, right-shot defense when Charlie McAvoy was not on the ice was a revolving door of left-shot opportunities because the Bruins had no one in the pipeline beyond Victor Soderstrom, who wore out his welcome in Providence (AHL) by refusing to fight after enraging the Hartford Wolfpack with a controversial hit and letting Matt Poitras take a barrage of shots instead. Not a good look for the former first-rounder (11th overall to AZ in 2019). At the same time, his 8GP in Boston never garnered him serious consideration as a solution for the depth problem at RHD.
Sweeney shot down my presupposition that Jokiharju must have been somewhat a bone of contention for him and Sturm. He doubled down on Kevin Paul Dupont’s follow-up question where it concerns management’s stance on Lohrei, who finished the series watching from the press box. Sweeney insists that Sturm is not down on Jokiharju and that he is not down on Lohrei.
When the presser reached its conclusion, the GM indulged me to an, off-the-record discussion for several minutes. In private, I made no attempt to get to the bottom of my whole Jokiharju problem. Instead, it was an opportunity to talk about lefts playing the right. I’m confident I can share this little tidbit: Sweeney told me that Ray Bourque (his 1992-95 defense partner) told him never to pass to Bourque’s backhand unless he was “above” (beyond) the forecheck. The show-and-tell included positioning, pivoting and leverage points to protect the puck against the forecheck. It was a great hockey discussion. I relish these opportunities. As far as Jokiharju is concerned, let’s wait and see if the Bruins run it back with or without Peeke, who has the right after his finest NHL season to go to the open market on July 1. Something’s gotta give there.
It was widely anticipated that the Canadiens and Sabres, after surviving respective tests from blue-collar, muck-it-up clubs such as the Lightning and the Bruins, were going to test one another’s mettle in a wide-open game of pond hockey. Results, thus far, seem to indicate that both teams are shunning that expectation with a plan to dodge and counter attack. Stay tuned.
Is any Eastern Conference team built to match up against the Colorado Avalanche?
If the Sabres were more experienced and had been through playoff runs prior to this season, the belief here is their Stanley Cup contention is based on a Big 3 defense: Rasmus Dahlin, Mattias Samuelsson and Owen Power – or is it Bowen Byram? Tage Thompson, Alex Tuch and, lately, Zach Benson get the love, but Buffalo’s ticket to a deep playoff run is based on the back end. Not only did they move the puck at will against the Boston forecheck, they were formidable at keeping the Bruins from getting close to Alex Lyon. Montreal may prove to be Buffalo’s Kryptonite, but Rink Rap prefers the Sabres over the long haul when it’s their time (not this year).
Meantime, what about the Hurricanes in this regard? Is Sean Walker their Brian Rafalski? If so, the Canes have a Big 3 on D,
Thanks to the acquisition/elevation of K’Andre Miller, this is possible for Carolina post Brett Pesce, who went to New Jersey in 2024 via UFA. Pesce, by the way, has had terrible luck with injury rivaling that of Hampus Lindholm (via the shot block – Pesce blocked a Brent Burns shot and was shut down by the Devils in March) and Charlie McAvoy (but by way of a skate to the face).
The way Carolina defends without Pesce is reminiscent of how the Montreal Canadiens managed to move on from Larry Robinson, Rod Langway and Brian Engblom and win the Cup while those players were still viable for other teams.
So Walker, who is skating top minutes for the Hurricanes, has become the most-intriguing, under-the-radar defenseman to watch in these playoffs. He may not play with the pizzazz of several others, but the undrafted right shot has built his experience and game quietly and become a cog in Carolina’s machine.
Who would you consider Carolina’s No. 2 center? If you say Logan Stankoven, compare his ATOI to the old man’s (Jordan Staal). Carolina contends based on defense. Is it enough? Walker will tell us.
The last time Rink Rap laid out the what history has to say about Stanley Cup contenders was in May of 2024 when the Florida Panthers were tearing through the tournament field for the second of three straight playoff years.
Consider history’s consistency of the two, distinct roster architectures on Cup champions when predicting your outcomes.
In the meantime, who’s the monkey-wrench team of the playoffs, the team that makes others adjust to them, sometimes in series with drastic maneuvers that hadn’t been considered all season? The monkey-wrench team doesn’t always win the Cup, but they spoil it for multiple wanna-be’s the way the Panthers did in 2023 before refining their model the way the Islanders did in 1980, the way the Devils did in 1995, and the way the Bruins did in 2011.
Rink Rap with Mick Colageo 