Hurricanes love to work overtime

DETROIT -- The Carolina Hurricanes are a workmanlike team, one that goaltending consultant Don Edwards describes, with a straight face, as a "team that puts on the hardhats, grabs a lunch bucket and goes to work." It's as if Ron Francis were working on a road crew on I-40 in Raleigh instead of scoring killer goals. But even though the Hurricanes do better than $15 an hour, even with the paltry pay scale of the Stanley Cup playoffs, there is no question they don't mind the overtime.

After Tuesday's 3-2 win in Game 1 of the finals, Carolina is now a remarkable 7-1 in OT during these playoffs. In a perfect world -- or a perfectly improbable world, given that the Detroit Red Wings remain the solid, if no longer overwhelming, favorites for the title -- the Hurricanes have three more chances to tie what was considered the singular feat of the 1993 Montreal Canadiens, who lost their first overtime of the playoffs but went on to win 10 straight in extra time. Three more OT wins is, of course, the ultimate longshot. But neither karma, good goaltending nor the surge of confidence that juices a dressing room before the extra session should be ignored. Carolina has it the way Montreal once did.

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"This is a little bit of a surprise," Hurricanes defenseman Sean Hill said. "But the team gets comfortable going into overtime. We had a lot of practice during the season." Indeed, Carolina went to the extra frame 27 times in the regular season.

Hill is Carolina's link to that '93 Montreal team. He was mostly a third-pair defenseman nearly a decade ago, a middling offensive threat who would barrel up the ice with his rock-'em-sock-'em skating style. Now he is a smoother skater and a more polished defender whom general manager Jim Rutherford rescued last December from the scrap heap in St. Louis. There he had been buried deep in coach Joel Quenneville's doghouse, managing just one goal and 14 points in 71 games with the Blues. Since his repatriation to Carolina, Hill has played a prominent role on the power play and at even strength, as unlikely a cornerstone defenseman as the Hurricanes are an overtime force.

"There are a lot of differences between '93 in Montreal and what we've done so far," Hill said. "Montreal had a few more stars. There was Patrick Roy and a few guys like that. We are a more balanced team than that one. No superstars here. [There is] no one guy we rely on like that Canadiens team relied on Patrick. We built our confidence early with our overtime success and have just managed to find a way to get it done. Every night, it seems there's a new suspect."

Certainly the credit has been diffused throughout the 'Canes. Six different players -- Francis, Bates Battaglia, Martin Gelinas, Jeff O'Neill, Josef Vasicek and Niclas Wallin (two playoff OT goals after scoring just once in the regular season) -- have contributed, and, improbably, so have two goalies. Arturs Irbe is 6-0 in overtime, and Kevin Weekes also has an OT win. "We don't talk about [overtime success]," defenseman Aaron Ward said. "We don't even ask what it is."

Heading into Game 2 on Thursday, the Red Wings have to be asking themselves about the Hurricanes. There was nothing Detroit saw from Carolina in the first game that can't be countered with some tweaking of lines or some defensive adjustments except this: Jaroslav Svoboda, Vasicek and Erik Cole are not going to shrink over the next 36 hours. The quick and robust 'Canes forwards, despite not figuring in the scoring in Game 1, were too much for the Red Wings' defense to handle down low at times. Carolina won a lot of loose pucks along the boards; eventually some of those are going to turn into scoring chances. Even Detroit's Brendan Shanahan, a top power forward who was a brutal minus-2 with one shot in 21 minutes, was overwhelmed along the wall. And small Hurricanes forward Sami Kapanen, who has scored at least 20 goals the past five seasons, might actually remember how to shoot the puck at some point, another looming danger for the Red Wings. Detroit certainly has to be committed to playing 60 minutes -- and against Carolina, perhaps more.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Michael Farber covers the NHL beat for the magazine and is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com.

 

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