On Saturday evening, the Hurricanes and the Islanders will open the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs—not just against each other but for the whole league. The Islanders are hoping the third time facing the Canes in the playoffs is the charm, as the Canes won the previous series in 2019 and 2023.
The thing is, as I’ll go into, if you’re going to try to dig into the history of those previous meetings or even the previous meetings this season, you’re not really going to get a lot of information about how this series will go. In the calendar year between the two playoff series, both teams have seen some substantial changes—on the bench and on the ice.