It's official, folks, the Ottawa Senators will take on the Carolina Hurricanes in the first round of the playoffs. This places the Senators in the metropolitan portion of the bracket for the first two rounds, along with the Pittsburgh Penguins and Philadelphia Flyers. They are the second wild card team, which puts them in eighth place in the East playoff picture. This will be the Senators' first playoff game against the Hurricanes in team history. So, what can we expect from this matchup? Let's get into the details.
Read more: The rise of the Senators and the fall of the Red Wings
Hurricanes' previous playoff success
The Hurricanes have made the playoffs eight consecutive years. Here are their first round results over the past seven years:
- 2019: Beat Capitals 4-3
- 2020: Beat Rangers 3–0 in qualifying round (then lost to Bruins 4–1 in official first round)
- 2021: Beat the Predators, 4-2
- 2022: Defeated Bruins 4-3
- 2023: Beat Islanders 4-2
- 2024: Beat Islanders 4-1
- 2025:Beat the Devils, 4-1
The Hurricanes have surpassed the 110-point mark in four of the last five seasons. That likely would have been five out of six years, except that 2021 was a 56-game season (they were the top team in their division with 80 points). They have made three conference finals during that time. Basically, they are a well-oiled machine. Effort is never an issue. They are as consistent a hockey team as you will find in the league. His issue has mainly been the lack of star power. Time and again, they lose to a team whose stars outperform the Hurricanes' best players. In last year's conference finals against the Panthers, they lost 21–10 in a five-game series.
storm players to watch
Here are the storm watchers:
- i am sebastian He is Mr. Consistency. He scored 80 points in 79 games this season. He puts up numbers like this every year.
- andrei svechnikov He's scary when he's on his game, but he's not that consistent. He scored 31 goals and 70 points this year. He started the year scoreless in his first nine matches.
- seth jarvis That's enough to become a member of Team Canada. He scored a team-high 32 goals this year. Last year also he had scored the same amount. the year before? 33. His total points over those three years: 67, 67, 66. Clearly another consistent player.
- Nikolaj Ehlers The new guy is in his first season with the Canes after being with the Jets for a decade. He was every bit as good as expected, scoring a career-high 71 points
- Shayne Gostisbear One of their best offensive defenders. He scored 50 points in 55 games this year. His 0.91 points per game ranked ninth among D-men.
- jacob slavin His shutdown D-man. He helped the USA win the gold medal at this Winter Olympics. Due to injury he played only 39 matches this season.
Looking at their stats, it's clear how deep this Hurricanes team is. I've limited it to the six players above, but there are many more that deserve mention. jackson blake, logan stankoven and captain jordan steele All scored 20+ goals. Taylor Hall Scored around 50 marks. k'andre miller, Alexander NikishinAnd sean walker Help build a deep blueline.
A weakness other than not being a true superstar? Goaltending is a big question mark. brandon bus Won 31 games this season but has struggled with a .872 SV% since the beginning of February. experienced Frederick Anderson Has a .874 SV% in 35 games this season. Their third goalkeeper, Pyotr KochetkovPlayed only nine games this season due to a hip injury.
The Senator and the Hurricane, by the numbers
Let's take a look at where both teams rank in key categories over the course of the season:
| senators | storm | |
| Target | 8 | 2 |
| goals against | 13th | 6 |
| power play | 8 | 4 |
| penalty killing | 29th | 11th |
| shots/game | 9 | 2 |
| shots allowed/game | 3 | 1st |
I'm here to say once again that the Carolina Hurricane is a well-oiled machine. They are a high level team in every way. In fact, watching him play, it's clear that Travis Green has tried to emulate his style with this Senators team. The Hurricanes dominate the shot battle in almost every game by an average of 32.2 to 23.9. The Senators are great in their own right with an average of 28.9 to 24.4.
The Senators' glaring weakness is their penalty kill. However, this may be a problem of the past. On January 24, he replaced Mike Yeo to lead the penalty kill. Since then, his success rate is 83.1%, which is the fifth best mark during that time.
What is also interesting is that in the three meetings this season, the Senators managed to win the shot battle all three times (37-19, 27-19, 31-28). Unfortunately, they won only one game out of three.
One area that is not included in the hurricane stat sheet is the area that is hit. He averaged 19.63 points per 60 minutes this season, which is good for 18th in the NHL. The Senators were third at 23.59. The Hurricanes often try to steal the puck instead. His 470 takeaways rank first in the NHL. This will be something to watch as the Senators pride themselves on winning puck battles. He finished fourth this season with 413 takeaways.
final thoughts
It is believed to be a one versus eight matchup in the Eastern Conference. It's really a battle between the second and ninth best teams in the NHL this season. If we look at the standings starting from January 25, here is how well these teams have played:
- ottawa senators: 21-6-4, .742 points percentage (second best in the NHL)
- carolina storm: 21-7-2, .733 points percentage (4th best in the NHL)
With average goaltending, the Senators would be higher in the standings, meaning the matchup would never make it to the first round. Instead, the Senators played 50 games with terrible goaltending, making them the second wild card team. This would make this a heavyweight first-round matchup against two of the best shot suppression teams in the league, who have tremendous depth and can score a lot of goals.
The Hurricanes deserve the support, but the Senators are playing great hockey right now. The series begins Saturday in Carolina. Here's one last statistic to wrap up this article: Including the 2020 preliminary round, the Hurricanes have played one game in their first playoff series in six consecutive years.
