The Carolina Hurricanes do not have that one single star that is the Big Bad whose opponents cower in fear that they might be picked up and ripped in half, leaving just a carcass to sit there and rot. They don’t have that generational talent up top because they have built a team that is more dependent on their entire team than any one single player.
And they might just end up getting the job done, but now they stand in front of the Philadelphia Flyers, the underdog team that took out the big bad Pittsburgh Penguins in six games. And while they are still without that star, they have a certain thing that is just as impactful to winning games as a star player would be.
It’s one single forward line that features a trio of castaways. And that is what can end the Flyers season.
The Hurricanes’ second line of Logan Stankoven centering both Taylor Hall and Jackson Blake has caused so much havoc for just about any team that steps on the ice with them. They have the right combination to tear apart defenses, make players crumble and succumb to the sheer weight that this line can put on top of them. Piling on a never-ending set of stones on the shoulders of opposing defenders until they give up and crash to the ground by letting in an eventual goal.
For some reason, it’s a combination that works. Maybe it’s the castaway mentality because they all have it.
Hall was thrown away by multiple organizations since the Original Throw Away from the Oilers in the monumental Hall-for-Larsson deal with the Devils. Toss in a failed appearance in Buffalo and somewhat-but-not-really successful performance in Boston for a couple years, and cameos on the Chicago Blackhawks and Buffalo Sabres along the way; Hall has been put through the wringer. He has now finally found a right home in Carolina and is truly find his footing as a successful winger once again.
And then you get Logan Stankoven, who was considered a draft gem for how damn long anyone had to wait to select him. And Jackson Blake was drafted even later than Stankoven but due to also being undersized, he was never really taken as serious as he should’ve been. And suddenly, Blake has a 51-point campaign and is one of the Hurricanes’ most important players.
Oh, and he can also do stuff like this:
This combination of innate skill and work ethic and drive that Blake has is infectious and it has spread to this lineup and maybe even the entire roster in Raleigh. But the main source is this trio and when they are on the ice they can tear you to shreds no matter what situation they are in.
As we saw on some setup plays, all three of Stankoven, Blake, and Hall can contribute to sustaining pressure inside the offensive zone and let even the most staunch of defenses collapse into their basic little box and let the smaller, skilled forwards right to where they need to be to end up with a big scoring opportunity.
We can worry about the big guns on the Hurricanes all we want but just below them in the lineup sheet, lies a trio of forwards who will be Rick Tocchet’s nightmare and so far seems impossible to match up against. Maybe the chess match between these coaches will explode into a furious and contentious battle for whatever ice is left open for this line to exploit.
This Hurricanes line might look even better under the hood
While it’s impressive just how they are able to take advantage of defenses being unprepared for their ability to attack and attack over and over again, looking at their impact on the games holds a lot of weight and they’re dominant here, as well.
In the four playoff games against the Ottawa Senators, the Hall-Stankoven-Blake line was not on the ice for a goal against and has managed to be one of the best lines in these playoffs so far. They are, at-worst, the third-best line since the playoffs began. Of the 32 forward lines that have played over 30 minutes at 5-on-5 in these playoffs, they are at-worst the third-best forward line in some categories.
It’s just perfection.
| TOI | Goals for% | Shots for% | Unblocked attempts for% | Shot attempts for% | Expected goals for% |
| 46.8 | 100 | 69.77 (1st) | 66.2 (3rd) | 65.96 (3rd) | 76.39 (1st) |
Not literal perfection but this line leading the playoffs in expected goals share while also having it come down to actual goals and not being out there for a goal against is really good, it’s controlling the quality of chances to such a degree that they can put it in plain English write here and everyone can nod along and know that that is a great hockey team.
And even looking at this entire regular season, this line was just dominating opponents and letting them suffocate.
Among the 126 forward lines that played at least 150 5-on-5 minutes this regular season, this trio was able to simply be one of the most controlling lines in the league.
| TOI | Goals for% | Shots for% | Unblocked attempts for% | Shot attempts for% | Expected goals for% |
| 551.1 | 58.33 (60th) | 58.88 (15th) | 59.64 (11th) | 61.62 (8th) | 59.7 (15th) |
It’s not the wild numbers we see during some playoff series, but for the regular season, that’s a line that has played so much hockey together and is so used to having the puck and letting whatever defense is out there with them feel hopeless and forget what it even feels like to have possession.
And it’s clear by just looking at where they are affecting play on the ice most, that they are just a machine that is hard to stop.
It’s one thing to see just how effective they were on the ice all season long with the numbers going their way, but to see the giant red blob right in front of the net as they get more scoring chances mere feet away from the netminder as a trio of forwards that just work, it’s somewhat terrifying. And even defensively, the only spot of weakness all season long has been a small blip of allowing more chances than league average in the left faceoff dot.
All of that to say that this could spell out disaster for the Flyers. Facing a line that is doing exactly what Tocchet wants all of his lines to do, their defense could be exposed a little bit and without having someone that can try and handle this line, they could be doomed.
So, what can the Flyers do about it?
It’s a question that has surely been asked in many meetings of Flyers coaches throughout the regular season and then has been stressed again ever since they got any idea that they can move to the second round. The trio of Stankoven, Blake, and Hall aren’t the most skilled line ever but they are the heartbeat of the Hurricanes — what makes everything click and what has led them to winning the vast majority games since they have been together on the same line.
One thing could be that the Flyers try to fight fire with fire and while the Flyers don’t have the exact same type of combination going on, since these are more fully developed players playing very good hockey, they can try to get something together to do something similar. We swear we’re not saying that these players are as good as any of these Hurricanes, but Alex Bump plays a little bit like Taylor Hall’s role on this line, Denver Barkey is a work horse that will never give up on an opportunity like Logan Stankoven, and Travis Konecny can be the answer to Jackson Blake if he improves his impact from what we saw in the Penguins series.
Those players won’t all play on the same line, but they can do a lot of what makes this line successful and maybe just do it on their own lines. It’s more of an approach in abstract because we don’t know exactly how the Flyers can answer tactically.
Maybe another option could be trying to bully their way to beating that line.
All three of those forwards do not necessarily have size going their way, with Hall being the largest at a modest 6-foot-1 and 209 pounds. The Flyers can answer that in a way that the Senators could not, with players like Owen Tippett, Sean Couturier, and Tyson Foerster being able to hopefully win the battles along the boards against that line. Keep them out on the perimeter and force them to give up possession without being able to make the puck plays that makes them a very good line.
As long as the Flyers can somewhat match their speed and pace of play, they can then use their physical advantage to hopefully nullify this group.
But, again, that’s just a theory. This line has just been so good all season long and the Flyers will need to do something about it.
