It’s not impossible.
Sure they are heavy–very heavy–underdogs, but it can be done. As a matter of fact, it has been done already this year.
Who gave the New England Patriots a chance to beat the St. Louis Rams in the Super Bowl?
About the same number of people who give the Carolina Hurricanes a chance to beat the mighty Detroit Red Wings in the Stanley Cup finals, which begin here Tuesday in Joe Louis Arena.
“[The Patriots] knew they were up against an offensive powerhouse,” Carolina forward Jeff O’Neill said. “They just executed their game plan to a `T,’ and that’s what we’re going to have to do to be successful.”
But there is a little problem with the Patriots analogy. New England only had to beat the Rams once. Anything can happen in a one-game, winner-take-all. Winning four games is another story.
Carolina goalie Arturs Irbe knows what a best-of-seven playoff series against Detroit is like, and maybe his story would be a more appropriate rallying cry for the Hurricanes.
In 1994, Irbe led a young, inexperienced San Jose Sharks team to perhaps the most stunning playoff upset in NHL history. Irbe and the eighth-seeded Sharks beat the top-seeded Red Wings in the first round of the Western Conference playoffs. The Sharks won the series in seven games. Game 7 was in Detroit.
Ask Colorado Avalanche goalie Patrick Roy what it’s like to try to win a seventh game of a playoff series in Detroit.
“That was a lot of fun,” Irbe said. “That was my first playoff experience, and we started off on the right foot. That was a long time ago. This is a different Detroit team and I’m playing on a different team.”
Irbe and the Sharks lost in the next round and were dismissed as a fluke. Detroit center Igor Larionov, who was on that San Jose team, knows that this Carolina team is no fluke.
“They’re playing in the finals,” Larionov said. “We know they have a good team.”
A good team that is getting no respect. Carolina, whose 91 points would not have been good enough to make the Western Conference playoffs, is the most lightly regarded finalist since Florida advanced to the finals in 1996. The Panthers were swept by Colorado–which is what many expect the Red Wings, who led the NHL with 116 points, to do to the Hurricanes.
Carolina knows that the only way to gain respect is to earn it with results. Before this season, Carolina had won only one playoff series in franchise history.
“You have to have success,” Hurricanes captain and elder statesman Ron Francis said.
Francis is one of seven Hurricanes with experience in the Stanley Cup finals. Francis won Cups with the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1991 and in 1992, the latter a sweep of the Blackhawks.
Despite having an eight-game winning streak in the finals, the Red Wings have failed as prohibitive favorites before.
As recently as the lockout-shortened season of 1995, the Wings went into the finals against a trapping, defensive-oriented New Jersey Devils team and were promptly swept. Carolina plays a similar patient, defense-first game.
“[The Hurricanes] don’t fool around,” Detroit coach Scotty Bowman said. “They are a very positional team.”
And a team that isn’t afraid to play close games. The Hurricanes played more overtime games than any other team in the NHL during the regular season. Overtime during the regular season is nothing like overtime in the playoffs, but the Hurricanes have fared well in sudden death in the postseason, winning six of seven, including the conference clincher at Toronto.
Carolina will unlikely be intimidated by facing Dominik Hasek in goal for Detroit. In their run to the Eastern Conference finals, the Hurricanes beat three pretty exceptional goaltenders in Martin Brodeur, Jose Theodore and Curtis Joseph.
“Maybe it helped that we’ve played three of the best goaltenders already,” Carolina center Rod Brind’Amour said. “We didn’t get a lot of goals in the last series but found a way to win.”
This series will be the first to pit two European goalies against one another with the Czech-born Hasek facing the Latvian Irbe.
Detroit won both meetings against Carolina in the regular season, but both came very early. Carolina made a couple of trade deadline moves to shore up its defense in the addition of Sean Hill and Bret Hedican.
“It just settled things down for them,” Detroit’s Steve Yzerman said. “They don’t give up a ton of [scoring] chances. They have become a more consistent and reliable defensive team.”
It would be natural after defeating rival Colorado in seven games that the Red Wings would have a bit of a letdown and assume the Stanley Cup was won last Friday. That may be the Hurricanes’ best chance to get an early leg up in the series.
“Just being in the finals,” Detroit grinder Kirk Maltby said. “If that doesn’t motivate you enough to get you going again, nothing will.”
So who has the edge?
STATS & STUFF
Tribune staff reporter Bob Foltman analyzes the Stanley Cup finals:
GOALTENDING:
Arturs Irbe struggled early in the playoffs and was replaced by Kevin Weekes for a couple of games before returning with a strong performance against Toronto in the Eastern Conference finals. Dominik Hasek outplayed Colorado’s Patrick Roy, the best playoff goaltender in NHL history, in the
Western Conference finals.
EDGE: Detroit
FORWARDS:
Detroit is
loaded. Brett Hull and Luc Robitaille each have more than 600 career goals, and they’re playing on the Red Wings’ third and fourth lines. Chicago native Bates Battaglia leads the Hurricanes, but Carolina doesn’t have the Wings’ depth.
EDGE: Detroit
DEFENSE:
Chris Chelios and Nicklas Lidstrom are Norris Trophy finalists for
Detroit. Sean Hill has had a strong playoff for Carolina, but, again, Detroit has more depth.
EDGE: Detroit
COACHING:
Paul Maurice, at 35 the youngest coach in the NHL, was rumored to be fired at various times during the regular season. He entered these playoffs with 12 postseason games under his belt. Scotty Bowman will try to win his third Stanley Cup with Detroit and ninth overall.
EDGE: Detroit
INTANGIBLES:
Carolina shouldn’t be here. If not for a coaching blunder by Montreal’s Michel Therrien in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference semifinals, the Hurricanes likely would have bowed out to the Canadiens. So Carolina is playing with house money. Hasek, Hull and Robitaille were brought to Detroit to win the Stanley Cup.
EDGE: Even
PREDICTION:
Detroit in five
