The Carolina Hurricanes have finally won a game in the Eastern Conference Final. Monday’s 3-0 victory over the reigning league champion Florida Panthers was the Canes' first victory in the penultimate round in the quest for the Stanley Cup since 2006. As Pete Blackburn pointed out on X, that was before the introduction of the iPhone.
Before that victory, the series was heavily tilted in Florida’s favor. Fans joke about the Hurricanes being swept in their previous three visits to the Conference Final, but entering Game 4, the aggregate score was 16-4 Panthers. Game 3 saw the Panthers win 6-2, but it was a move after the Panthers' final goal that caught our attention.
Brad Marchand scored his fourth goal of these playoffs at the 10:37 mark of the third to give Florida a five-goal lead. Hurricanes head coach Rod Brind’Amour briefly considered challenging the goal. Was history repeating itself after Brind’Amour challenged, and lost, a goal in their 2019 playoff matchup with the Bruins which was followed by a Brad Marchand goal? Had the goal been disallowed, his team still would have been down by four. Is there a case for challenging what was, more or less, a meaningless goal?
Since the series has already resumed, let's consider this a "frozen in time" example. There’s always the argument from “do-gooders” and rule followers that if the goal shouldn’t have been allowed, it shouldn’t count just for the sake of following the rules. However neither team would gain an advantage in that scenario.
In an interview years ago, NHL referee Wes McCauley mentioned three types of penalties he never tries to miss, one of which was scoring opportunities. While Marchand’s goal was a “scoring opportunity”, it also wasn’t a game changer.
Had Brind’Amour challenged, and lost, his team would find themselves on the penalty kill. That could have given Florida a chance to score a seventh goal which might have been just as useless as Marchand’s tally. A seventh goal would have added insult to injury. If Carolina wasn’t completely demoralized at a then 6-1 losing score and a 3-0 series deficit, a seventh goal just might have been the dagger. Perhaps that’s why Brind’Amour sought a reason to challenge: to give his team hope.
At that point the Hurricanes were desperate for something, literally anything, to go their way. Overturning Marchand’s goal would not have put them in an opportunity to win, but it might have been a small step in changing momentum in Carolina’s favor after what had been a continuous onslaught at the hands of the Panthers. Could it have changed the mental mindset of the players? The game was winding down anyway so perhaps Brind’Amour realized he was unlikely to use it on anything else. Why not use it if there was penalty for being unsuccessful.
Then again, all arguments about it helping sway momentum ever so slightly in Carolina’s directly could also be applied to Seth Jarvis’s power play goal less than two minutes later. That cut the deficit back to four, still a seemingly unsurmountable amount to overcome, but showed the Hurricanes still had some fight. Fighting back is just what they did when Carolina won Game 4 with a 3-0 shut out. The Hurricanes had scored four unanswered goals in the series since Marchand’s last goal for Florida.
Even the most risk-seeking bettors would be cautious about Carolina pulling off a reverse sweep comeback. Hey Hurricanes fans, at least you had your fun in Game 4 and earned an Eastern Conference Final victory for the first time since the Atlanta Thrashers were still in the league. Even if it ends with a “gentlemen’s sweep,” at least Carolina didn’t let themselves get pushed around for the Panthers to clinch at home in a rematch of their 2023 meeting.