Success in Eastern Conference Final will come from which top line shows up

The Montreal Canadiens are back in the third round of the Stanley Cup playoffs for the first time since the 2021 COVID-season playoffs and will look to get off to a strong start away from home against the Carolina Hurricanes on Thursday night. 

While the Hurricanes will look to hold home-ice advantage, the series could be defined by the top players on both teams rather than by depth, with the top lines the potential deciding factor. 

On Thursday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, co-hosts Tyler Yaremchuk and Carter Hutton broke down the series ahead of puck drop.

Tyler Yaremchuk: It’s the first Conference Final game for the Habs since 2021. It’s the first Conference Final game for the Carolina Hurricanes since last year. I know we dug into this a bit yesterday, but when you look at this series, if the Habs want to come out hot, what do they need this evening?

Carter Hutton: They have to have the momentum. They’re going to have to get a lot from their top line. I think that’s going to be a big thing in this series, right? Because the matchups in Game 1 and Game 2 are going to Carolina due to the last change. You’re going to have to go up against Jordan Staal, and his line can shut you down in the defensive zone. 

That being said, I think the biggest factor here, too, for them is not overextending themselves and staying in the moment. Something that could be a key factor when I look at Montreal is Ivan Demidov. It felt like he was just continually getting better and adding more confidence to his game come playoff time. He’s learning how to play in these games, and he’s a great example of like a Mitch Marner style player, where he is so good with the puck, you have to be careful when they’re going to have to chop that, and as for the Carolina Hurricanes, is it still going to be that one line that can come and dominate post coming out of the break? Because that’s going to be an interesting topic. It’s going to be a game of cat and mouse early on as we see the rest of this matchup.

Tyler Yaremchuk:  I want to zero in on the two top lines here for a second. Carolina’s top line has only been on the ice for one five-on-five goal so far in their eight playoff games. Montreal’s top line and when you look at their scoring leaders, Suzuki, Caufield and Slafkovský, they’re all up there in the top five, but against Buffalo, they weren’t exactly dominant. In fact, far from it, Caufield, Suzuki, and Slafkovský, when all three of them were on the ice at five on five, they got outscored four to one. So I do think with Demidov and Newhook, like Montreal’s got good depth, and Carolina’s shown through two series, even if you want to say the opponents and the quality were a little bit weaker than what even Montreal had to go through, they got good depth as well. 

I think this series is really going to be decided by which of these two top lines shows up more often. Which one of these top lines can win that matchup? Because, again, Montreal got away a couple of games with some puck luck, and getting outplayed five-on-five. Like, I don’t think you’re going to get away with that against the Carolina Hurricanes. You probably need that Slafkovský, Caufield, and Suzuki line to dominate their matchup.

You can catch the rest of the Game 1 preview and the entire episode here…