Do the Hurricanes even have a chance against the Panthers?

A battle that many hoped would pit an irresistible force against an immovable object has seemingly turned into a battle between David and Goliath—except David doesn’t have any rocks.

The Carolina Hurricanes entered the Eastern Conference Final against the Florida Panthers with home-ice advantage. However, after the first two games of the series in Raleigh, the defending Stanley Cup championship might as well have been the home team.

The Panthers ran away with a win in Game 1 but then put the boots to the Hurricanes in the second game. For a team that usually leads the shot count, Carolina only had seven shots on goal through two periods on its way to a 5-0 loss, taking a 2-0 lead as the series shifts to Sunrise.

On Friday’s edition of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Tyler Yaremchuk and Frank Seravalli discussed whether the Canes were even in a fair fight with the Cats.

Tyler Yaremchuk: That felt like the first time this Canes team had truly no-showed. Is that too harsh? Like, under 20 shots. When you look at how they generated shots on goal throughout the entire playoffs, this is an insane outlier.

Frank Seravalli: I think no-show feels a little bit harsh. I think what I would say is no answer, no pushback. It’s not so much that the Canes aren’t good or aren’t a good team, it’s that they don’t have a solution for how to beat the Florida Panthers. They are a team that is just, at this point in time, looks to be head and shoulders above the Carolina Hurricanes, and that sometimes is what happens. It’s kind of rare in this sport, particularly this postseason, that you see a team jump out to a pretty significant series lead and have the score in the series scoreboard be exactly indicative of what that action has been like on the ice. I’d say this is probably as close as we’ve been to that. The Panthers have blown the doors off the Canes, and it is that ferocious Florida attack that, even for a team that defends really well and excels with their structure, they’ve really struggled to handle it. I think that part stands out.

You can watch the full segment here…