Carolina Hurricanes has been the Cinderella story of the 2009 postseason. After two tough seven game series against the top two teams in the Eastern Conference, the Boston Bruins and New Jersey Devils, Carolina has shown that they have what it takes to play with the best teams in the league. In the Eastern Conference Finals, they will meet Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins, fresh off an emphatic seventh game win over the Washington Capitals.
Offense: While Carolina has gotten through series against two of the top defenses in the league, Pittsburgh is coming off of an offensively charged matchup against Alexander Ovechkin and Washington’s group of highly talented scorers. With Crosby and Malkin, the Pens have the top two remaining playoff scorers. Malkin alone has as many assists as leading Carolina scorer Eric Staal has points. Combined with the fact that Pittsburgh has gotten ten goals from their defense, and Pittsburgh has to have the edge on the Hurricanes.
Advantage: Pittsburgh
Defense: Carolina has played solid team defense throughout the playoffs, although most of the reason that they have been successful defensively is due to the play of Cam Ward in net. Pittsburgh’s defensive defensemen have often been overlooked due to the play of Sergei Gonchar and Kris Letang, both strongly offensive defensemen. However, the Penguins’ group of American defensemen (Hal Gill, Brooks Orpik, Mark Eaton, Rob Scuderi) did an excellent job of shutting down Alexander Ovechkin and the Capitals in their seven game series.
Advantage: Pittsburgh
Goaltending: As good as Marc-Andre Fleury has been throughout the playoffs, Cam Ward is becoming one of the best playoff goalies in recent memory. Ward is perfect in Game 7s, and has yet to lose a playoff series, dating back to his playoff debut in 2006, when he carried the Hurricanes to the Stanley Cup.
Advantage: Carolina
Special Teams: The health of Sergei Gonchar would likely have been the determining factor in which one of these teams would have the better powerplay under other circumstances. However, Kris Letang and Alex Goligoski have both demonstrated that they can man the point, and the Penguins’ powerplay was able to score four goals in the last two games of the series against Washington. On the other hand, Carolina has scored only five powerplay goals throughout the entire postseason.
Advantage: Pittsburgh
While Carolina has played spoiler in their past two series, when they meet the Penguins on Monday night, they may find themselves struggling to figure out how to match up against the top two point scorers in the playoffs, considering they play on different lines. Cam Ward will have to bring his top form in every single game, or this one could be over early. Penguins in 5