New Jersey Devils: Carolina Hurricanes Waiting In Round 2

The New Jersey Devils hold a 3-2 lead on the New York Rangers in their best-of-seven first-round series. They’ve won three in a row, and they completely embarrassed the Rangers at home in Game 5. Rangers fans would say this series is over, but we know better. In fact, the Rangers have returned from a 3-2 series deficit against the Devils once before.

So, we write this article saying we are not, we repeat, we are not counting our chickens before they hatch. This is just informative to see who the Devils would play in Round 2.

The Carolina Hurricanes beat the New York Islanders in Game 6 of their first-round series. It looked like the Islanders spent the entire third period holding onto a tie, hoping Ilya Sorokin could secure a win in overtime. He couldn’t. In fact, he let in a very questionable goal.

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The Canes and Devils battled it out for most of the season for first place in the Metropolitan Division. No matter what, the first game of the second round will be in Raleigh, as the Hurricanes hold the number-one seed. They won just enough towards the end of the season to hold off the Devils and Rangers.

This Hurricanes team has been completely different since Andrei Svechnikov got injured. He will be out for the rest of the playoffs, no matter how long they last for the Canes. That’s not the only injury the Canes are dealing with. Teuvo Teiravainen broke his hand in the Islanders series and had surgery to fix it. We doubt he will return.

The Devils went 2-1-1 against the Canes this season. It was a pretty split series. They were separated by one goal in four games, with the Devils scoring 13 and the Hurricanes netting 12. The Devils won the two most recent games, but they haven’t played since March 12th.

What’s strange is how different the Devils played against the Hurricanes. They focused solely on important chances. The 40.85% CorsiFor is the lowest against any other opponent in the league. They posted 145 chances in four games while giving up 210. Yet, they pushed 42 high-danger chances while the Canes only had 33. So, the Devils were much more efficient with their chances while the Hurricanes went with a high-volume approach.

If that’s how the Canes do it next round, it might not work out for them. However, let’s wait until next week before worrying about that. The Devils still need to put away the Rangers. As they say, the fourth game is the hardest to win.