On eve of playoffs, Canes defenseman goes 1-on-1 with ABC11

RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- The Carolina Hurricanes battled through the regular season to claim the Eastern Conference's top seed for the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Yet the coming weeks will determine whether this season is considered a success, starting with a best-of-7 series against the Ottawa Senators.

"You can do all these great things during the regular season, but I almost think of regular season and postseason as two different, two completely different games, almost even," defenseman K'Andre Miller told ABC11. "Yeah, we had success with a long regular season, yeah, we were able to put up a good amount of points and come in first or whatever, but honestly, all that stuff drops. I think talent can only get you so far, obviously. I think what's going to matter most is kind of bringing it each night."

This is the eighth consecutive playoff appearance for the Hurricanes, whose active postseason streak is surpassed only by Colorado and Tampa Bay at nine years. So regular-season success isn't new. Nor is postseason success with 10 series wins in this run.

But they've hit a familiar ceiling, falling in the Eastern Conference final in two of the past three years and thrice in the current playoff streak. Now they'll try again to play their way back to that position, then take that final step.

"They've all worked for 10 months to get to this point to have this opportunity," coach Rod Brind'Amour said. "We just want to put our best foot forward."

The first-round tussle, with Game 1 set for 3 p.m. on Saturday, pairs teams with very different recent histories.

Going back to the 2020-21 season, Carolina is second among all NHL teams behind Colorado in points (632) and regulation wins (238). Meanwhile, the Senators ranked 20th with 484 points and 173 regulation wins in that span. They're back for a second straight postseason, with last year's team losing a six-game first-round series to Toronto. Before that, Ottawa had languished through a seven-year postseason drought following a seven-game loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins in the 2017 Eastern Conference final.

But the Senators won five of six to secure a wild-card spot, a run that began with a 6-3 home win against the Hurricanes. They clinched their trip with a 3-0 win against the New York Islanders on April 11, followed by Detroit's regulation home loss to New Jersey later that day.

"Last year, we were playing good hockey at this time of the year, too," Ottawa center Claude Giroux said. "We're not shooting ourselves in the foot. We just have confidence in how we're playing and that we're going to give ourselves a chance to win."

Carolina finished second in the NHL by averaging 3.55 goals, with its 291 goals marking the most for the franchise since relocating to North Carolina before the 1997-98 season. The Hurricanes are the league's only team with seven players having scored 20-plus goals.

"Nothing's going to be handed to us," Miller said. "We've got to work for it."

Brind'Amour hasn't named a Game 1 starter between veteran Frederik Andersen (16-14-5, 3.05 goals-against average) and Brandon Bussi (31-6-2, 2.47), who went from waiver pickup to earning a three-year extension through the 2028-29 season in February.

Andersen, with 32 starts in the past three postseasons, improved after the Olympic break (9-4-0, 2.70). Bussi cooled from a 23-3-0 start that saw him have a 2.16 GAA, posting a 3.16 GAA after the break.

One positive for Bussi: he finished strong, posting a 1.44 GAA and .943 save percentage in season-closing games at Philadelphia and the New York Islanders.

Carolina hosts the first two games, with Game 2 set for Monday. The series shifts north to Canada's capital city with Game 3 next Thursday and Game 4 on April 25.

- The Associated Press contributed.