The Central Division’s final 2 teams face off against each other on a Sunday evening from PNC Arena in Raleigh, North Carolina. The 1st and 3rd seeds of the Central are the Carolina Hurricanes and the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Lightning beat the Florida Panthers in 6 games to reach here while the Canes also won in 6 games against the Nashville Predators. Carolina were 3-0 at home in front of their fans which made quite a bit of noise. Tampa Bay welcomed Nikita Kucherov and Steven Stamkos back from injury. These two have had a flying start to this year’s playoffs themselves and made others around them better. This series should be lots of fun as it kicks off Game 1 at 5:00 PM EST on Sunday.
Tampa Bay surprised me in that series. I did not believe Kucherov and Stamkos could play that well but I was totally wrong. Their power play was terrifying to play against and scored almost every time. Kucherov leads the players with most points in the playoffs till now. He has 3 goals and 8 assists in 6 games which is 11 points. I thought he would be rusty since he had a long injury but seems as good as new now. That top line kept on shifting how to score. One time Kucherov would one timer it and another time he would fake one timer and pass to an easy tip-in for Alex Killorn or Brayden Point. They are so unpredictable which makes them so good on the ice rink. I believe they are a team made to go deep into the postseason again.
The Canes won the Central Division title this year and played really well. I thought their penalty kill was fabulous against the Preds which will help in this series. Against Nashville, they took a lot of penalties and even though they killed most of them, it takes the momentum away from the team. They weren’t that disciplined which will cost them vs Tampa. The Canes can’t let them go on the power play because they will probably score. Aho had a good series with 7 points and played well. I also thought that their goaltending was good. Alex Nedeljkovic started all 6 games and had a pretty good series. He had some really good saves in that series but his biggest test will be against the Lightning. This hockey team is having an unbelievably great year and I believe they are the team to shut down the Tampa Bay Lightning.
I believe the Carolina Hurricanes will win Game 1 by the score of 5-4. They will have more than 12,000 Caniacs (Hurricanes fans) and will feed off that energy in this game. Fans, like I’ve mentioned plenty of times, have a massive impact on players and really make the visiting team down and tired. The Hurricanes have plenty of talented players which can make a difference and I think they can slow down the Tampa Bay top line. These guys can make things happen and the Tampa Bay defensmen will struggle with them. Also, Victor Hedman, their number one defenseman and a big part of their top line is injured so that will definitely hurt them.
Hurricanes fans certainly know how to make noise. Will that affect the way Tampa Bay plays? Can the Tampa Bay Lightning win in an arena full of Canes fans or will the Carolina Hurricanes defeat the defending Stanley Cup Champions on home ice? We will find out very soon from North Carolina.
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