Workrate Hockey - June 19, 2026

In case you missed the last one of these, I went on a little bit of a personal story about by fandom of the New York Islanders Quebec Nordiques Carolina Hurricanes because the Hurricanes had actually done the thing and everyone's got their own story of how they got to this point, whether it be a Hartford convert (hi Ollie), a Greensboro lifer, a 2006 bandwagoner who stuck around, or just someone who just came around that only associates #53 with Jackson Blake and no one else.

But now that we're a little calmed down, let's actually take a look at what all just happened.

OTTAWA: I kind of went into it more in the newsletter I did after the series, but Ottawa wasn't your typical 8 seed. This was a team that was legit hot - 21-6-4 over their last 31 games, which is impressive for a team that had to employ James Reimer. Linus Ullmark, a former Vezina winner just three seasons ago, had had a rough season but was hot at the absolute right time, going 5-1 in his last six starts of the season with a .926 sv% and a 1.83 goals against as the Sens battled to hold onto a playoff spot.

Swept in four. Shutdown defense, clutch scoring, and Freddie Andersen looking like he was 27. Really, this series was the series that sent the message that this Canes team was approaching things differently than in previous seasons, throwing the body with abandon and determined to show that unlike in previous seasons, the team wasn't going to be pushed around. Hell, when Brady Tkachuk challenged Jordan Staal to a fight and Staal actually accepted, you knew this was going to be different.

[Side note: why the hell does Tkachuk challenge Staal here? It's usually a home team player seeing their team fall behind and wanting to get the crowd back into the game looking for a scrap. Tkachuk not only gets the Raleigh crowd even more ramped up, but (arguably) loses the fight in the process and looks kind of like a chump. Got to be embarrassing for him, but luckily for me he won't see this because he can't read.]

PHILADELPHIA: arguably the "easiest" of the Hurricanes playoff opponents, the Flyers were 28-22-11 at the deadline with a -14 goal differential, to the point where the Flyers gave the Hurricanes Nic Deslauriers for future considerations because the Flyers liked Deslauriers and they knew that they weren't a Cup team and this would be an opportunity to get a chance at the Cup.

Awkward. Regardless, the Flyers went 15-5-1 after the deadline, outscoring their opponents 73-52 in those games, to take 3rd in the Metro, then defeated a Penguins team that is my god so incredibly old (in hockey terms). A key talking point for this series was that every game the two teams played in the regular season went to overtime* (with the Canes winning three of four). This was meant to show that the two teams were evenly matched.

[ *this would become a theme in later rounds]

They were not. While the Flyers put up a better fight than expected, it was another sweep. Unlike Ottawa, Philly took a lead in both games 2 and 4, but both games would end up evening out, going to overtime where the Canes would take both. The Flyers are a team that may have something though - a revitalized Trevor Zegras along with Matvei Michkov, Jamie Drysdale, and 19-year-old Porter Martone are shaping up to be a solid young foundation. If Dan Vladar doesn't turn into a pumpkin, this is going to be a playoff team to contend with in the future.

MONTREAL: This team is going to be dangerous. Jakub Dobes looked great in the playoffs, and players like Nick Suzuki, Lane Hutson, Ivan Demidov, and Juraj Slafkovsky are stars in the making if they aren't already stars. Analysts and Habs fans were quick to point out Montreal had gone 3-0 against the Canes during the regular season, but they went through the gauntlet in the playoffs, taking down a Lightning team which I regret to inform you is back and the revitalized Buffalo Sabres, both in seven games, so it was an emotional and physical battle to get to the ECF. Would they be exhausted taking on a well-rested Hurricanes team?

A 6-2 bitchslapping said otherwise. The Habs answered an early goal by scoring four and the first, destroyed every narrative that was building for the Canes, and seemingly reinforced one longstanding one - that the Canes can't win in the Eastern Conference Final. An overtime victory to make it a 1-1 series lead to a second overtime win in Montreal - a game that despite its score foreshadowed what was coming for the Habs. Montreal only got 13 shots on goal in Game 3, and whether by exhaustion or just simply getting outplayed, lost the next two by a combined 10-1 score, scrubbing the ECF narrative away from the Canes and put the Cup directly in their sights.

VEGAS: What do you say about Vegas? On March 29th, the day that Vegas fired Bruce Cassidy and replaced him with John Tortorella, the team was 32-26-16, which is essentially 32 wins and 42 losses. They were third in the Pacific, and their 80 points would have made them 5th in the Central, and 7th in both the Metro and Atlantic. They were on an 8-15-4 run since the middle of January. That's bad. Tortorella, to his credit, slapped them out of it and the team went 7-0-1 to finish the season and win the Pacific, which also kind of tells you something about the Pacific. They beat the Mammoth - a wild card team that had a better record than them - in six games after going down 2-1 in the series. They beat a Ducks team that was probably happier to be there than Philadelphia was, 4-2 with Mitch Marner delivering a ridiculous goal in Game 6 which essentially ended the series one minute into the game.

But, the scariest thing for Canes fans and those watching from afar was Vegas' 4-0 sweep over Colorado. The Avs, embracing the President's Trophy curse, couldn't handle Vegas, who got great goaltending from someone I won't mention here, and managed to beat a team that looked dominant during the regular season and who only lost one game in the playoffs up to that point. Did injuries to their two best players affect them? Sure did. But Vegas did it and got into the Final, where suddenly they were the sexy pick to take it all. Look what they did to Colorado, Torts has them playing on another level, Vegas was undefeated in the regular season against Carolina, etc.

What a ridiculous series. Vegas wins Game 1 5-4 in a back and forth battle that begins to show a weakness in Frederik Andersen's play and starts to spark that fear that was growing in some fans' heads about Freddy and playing an extended run with his injury history. Game 2 has the Canes down 2-0 midway through the third and really unable to put anything together resembling their actual play style. But three goals in five minutes gave the Canes the lead, only to give it up after Vegas pulled their goalie and played 6-4 power play hockey, tying the game only shortly after the Canes penalty ended. But, only 4 minutes into overtime, Seth Jarvis quiets critics a little bit and makes it 1-1 going to Vegas.

Then came the game. A scoreless first period gets broken open in the second as Tomas Hertl (remember when it was rumored that the Canes were getting Hertl from Vegas like last offseason? Good times) scores on the power play, then Mitch Marner gets a natural hat trick (to be fair, one of those goes off a Cane) and Vegas goes up 4-0 going into the third.

I'll be honest. I stopped watching. I think I put on 30 Rock to cope. Then the notifications started on my phone. Jordan Martinook scores. Good for hi... wait, another notification - Taylor Hall scored? I look at my phone to see the notification about Hall but the score says 4-3, meaning the notifications couldn't keep up with the scoring. Holy shit. I can't turn the game back on now, can I? Two kids ask if I'm watching the game. I tell them I'm not and I can't, which gets puzzled looks. Finally, after Svech scores on the power play and the game goes into overtime, I concede and put the game on. So yeah, it's my fault. But in the process, #GoodLongIslandBoy Brandon Bussi has entered the mix, to which I assume he came out like mascots do when you unlock them in EA's NHL series.

You know what followed. The Canes take Game 4 after putting up 3 in the first but letting that lead slip away in the second before taking back control in the third to even the series at 2. Game 5 sees the Canes go down 1 before scoring four straight and eventually winning 4-2 and getting one game away, then in Vegas, with a decent amount of Canes fans in attendance (Vegas fans knew), Taylor Hall scores less than 4 minutes in and Bussi records the shutout to bring the team to glory.

It's still incredible to know that it happened and to have people talk about 100k-120k people being downtown for the Canes parade on Saturday. That seems like a lot, especially for a city without any reliable mass transit system. Good luck to whomever goes, and may the odds be forever in your favor.

It's funny now that the discourse around the team originally was that Rod Brind'Amour was a legacy hire and was only hired because no one else wanted the job. Then it was Brind'Amour getting the team to play well and above their skill level but they lacked the "playoff players" that would win them Cups. Then apparently there was voodoo with the team because no matter how good you thought they were they couldn't win an Eastern Conference Final game. Now, the team runs through a 16-3 record through the playoffs, wins a Stanley Cup, and suddenly it's "well, you didn't really face a challenge."

I always come back to the "In Living Color" skit with Jim Carrey as a karate instructor that wants to show the class how to prevent an attack, so he tells ones of his students to come at him with a knife. She does and stabs him, and he condescendingly tells her she didn't stab him correctly. A second try gets a second stabbing, and he gets angry, once again reiterating the proper way to stab someone - specifically an arm-locked fully exaggerated downward stabbing motion. The woman does it that way and is viciously attacked by the karate master, showing how skillful he is.

We just went over the path the Canes took to get here, and it's funny that no one actually look at the teams in context but only looks at the point totals at the end of the regular season. Ottawa had their run at the end, Philly was coming in hot, and we know the story with Vegas. Only Montreal had a "respectable" record that the Canes faced. Yet, we'll hear that they beat teams with 99 points, 98 points, 106 points, and 95 points to win the Cup. It was too easy.

No shit. That's how it's supposed to work. You do well in the regular season and you're supposed to be rewarded with the "easier" opponents early on, though the wild card threw that a little into chaos as wild card teams end up with better records than 2nd and 3rd place finishers in some divisions (like what happened this season as the 2nd place Penguins and 3rd place Flyers had less points than 2nd wild card Ottawa).

We get told over and over that the playoffs is a grind and how tough it is to win 16 games over that stretch and that only teams "built for the playoffs" can make it, then people bitch when it's not the team that fits their narrative. Vegas beat two 92 teams - neither of which would have made the playoffs had they been in the East - before knocking off an injured Colorado team, and I can assure you no one would have called Vegas' path "easy" had they beaten Carolina.

Then again, you've got some Barstool trolls saying things like "does it put an asterisk at all next to it that they didn't have to beat the [84 point, 40-38-4, 14th in the Eastern Conference] Florida Panthers?" Cope is hard for some people.

Erm... never mind. See you Tuesday.