The Carolina Hurricanes tussled with Ottawa in pressure-packed games, and played with little open ice and a growing physical testiness, to open the NHL playoffs. Years of postseason experience showed in taking a first-round sweep.The Eastern Conference’s top seed closed out the Senators 4-2 in Saturday’s Game 4 of the best-of-7 series. It capped a series that saw Carolina’s top line and power play go quiet, along with the team spending too much time in the penalty box. Yet the Hurricanes offset that with a dominating showing from its second line of Logan Stankoven, Taylor Hall and Jackson Blake; a nearly flawless penalty kill and elite goaltending from Frederik Andersen.“Like we’ve kind of talked about all year, whatever way the game goes, our group can handle it,” said Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour, who has won at least one postseason series in all eight of his seasons. “I didn’t love all the penalties. There’s a fine line you’ve got to try to balance. I don’t know that we did a great job there. But I loved just the compete level of our group from Game 1 all the way through. Pretty impressive.”The Hurricanes’ playoff run under Brind’Amour goes back to an unexpected run to the Eastern Conference Final in 2019 after a nine-year postseason drought. They’ve been a postseason fixture ever since, reaching the Eastern final in two of the past three seasons, losing to Florida each time.Notably in 2023, they lost four one-goal games to the Panthers in a series that included a four-overtime thriller, …
