NHL playoffs second round is set. What to know about Hurricanes-Capitals matchup
The last time the Carolina Hurricanes and Washington Capitals tangled in the Stanley Cup playoffs, Brock McGinn won a battle and the Canes won the series.
It was 2019. Rod Brind’Amour was in his first season as Carolina’s head coach and Justin Williams the team captain. The Caps were the defending Cup champions and the Canes in the playoffs for the first time since 2009.
The series stretched seven games, with the Caps winning the first two. Game 7 at Capital One Arena in Washington, went to overtime and then double overtime.
And then, in a blink of an eye, McGinn became an instant Hurricane hero.
Getting inside position on the Caps’ Tom Wilson – yes, that Tom Wilson – in front of goalie Braden Holtby, McGinn redirected a centering pass/shot from Williams – yes, “Mr. Game 7” – for the game-winning, series-deciding goal to end the Caps’ season.
After nine straight seasons without a playoff appearance, the Canes were back and making some serious noise. They now have been in the playoffs each of Brind’Amour’s first seven seasons as coach -and after finishing off the New Jersey Devils on Tuesday have won at least one playoff series each year — an NHL first for a coach.
But that was the start, Canes-Caps in 2019. Now, they’ll do it again in the playoffs, meeting in an Eastern Conference second-round series that will begin in Washington, just as it did in 2019. The NHL has not yet set the dates and times.
McGinn now plays for the Anaheim Ducks and Williams has retired, but some of the same faces remain for both teams. There’s No. 8 for the Caps, that man Alex Ovechkin, veteran defenseman John Carlson, Nic Dowd, Lars Eller and Wilson. The Canes have Jaccob Slavin, Jordan Staal, Jordan Martinook and Andrei Svechnikov, a rookie in 2019 who was in the middle of arguably the series’ most poignant moment.
The Caps won the Metropolitan Division with 111 points, 12 ahead of the second-place Canes, who were 2-1-1 this season against Washington. The Caps took care of the Montreal Canadiens in the opening round of the playoffs, taking a 4-1 home-ice victory in Game 5 on Wednesday, matching the Canes’ five-game series win over New Jersey.
It will be the first time since 2018, their Cup year, the Caps have reached the second round.
Here are five things to know about this playoff rematch six years in the making:
The ‘Gr8 Chase’ is history
Ovechkin’s goal-scoring pursuit of Wayne Gretzky’s career record, dubbed the “Gr8 Chase,” was one of the season’s top NHL storylines – if not the top storyline.
Gretzky’s career total of 894 goals once seemed impregnable, but the “Great 8” went at it with a fury this season especially after recovering from a broken leg. Ovechkin scored No. 892 against the Canes on April 2, scored twice against Chicago to tie the record and then scored No. 895 with a power-play specialty in a road game against the New York Islanders on April 6.
With that done and the record book rewritten, Ovechkin is after a second Cup ring to add to his legacy. At 39, he remains a force on the ice. The 6-foot-3, 238-pound forward still packs a wallop with his booming 100 mph shot and is lethal on the power play -- he had four goals in the Montreal playoff series after 44 in the regular season.
Ovechkin-Svechnikov, round 2
The Canes’ Svechnikov was 19 years old in 2019 when he made a brave but foolish decision in Game 3 of the playoff series: drop the gloves and face off against Ovechkin.
The older Russian had the better of it, quickly getting in the big punches and sending Svechnikov to the ice with a concussion. The Caps had won the first two games at home, but the one-sided fight at what is now the Lenovo Center could have been the turning point of the series – at least, many around the Canes believed so then and now.
The inspired Canes won Game 3 and Game 4 at home and eventually took the series to that Game 7 that McGinn decided. Svechnikov, who scored twice in Game 2, did not return in the series but did in the second round against the Islanders as the Canes advanced to the Eastern Conference final.
Svechnikov now is in his seventh NHL season and coming off a playoff series that had him score five goals, including his second career postseason hat trick in Game 4 in New Jersey. No hats hit the ice for that one, but his lawn in Raleigh was littered with hats the next day.
“Good neighbors,” he quipped.
Svechnikov became the fifth player in franchise history to score five goals in a series – Sebastian Aho (2021) and Eric Staal (2009) being the most recent two. He was a physical presence throughout the five games, banging people, creating some sparks with Devils goalie Jacob Markstrom.
“I had a good series, but my feeling right now is let’s move on and it’s going to be a new series nd I’ve got to continue what I’ve got to do,” Svechnikov said Tuesday after the 5-4 double-overtime win over the Devils in Game 5.
And, like Ovechkin, he hasn’t forgotten the 2019 playoffs.
The Tom Wilson factor
Wilson hasn’t forgotten, either. And if there is a player in the NHL who fits the hockey cliche “built for the playoffs” it might be the 6-foot-4, 225-pound forward who scored a career-high 33 goals this season and has a fear factor built into his game.
Wilson’s megaton hit on the Canadiens’ Alexandre Carrier turned the momentum in Game 4 of their series at the Bell Centre in Montreal. The Caps scored soon after Carrier left the ice to tie the score, and went on to a 5-2 win for a 3-1 series lead.
That came after some wild antics in Game 3 in Montreal. Wilson and the Habs’ Josh Anderson went at it and their fight carried onto the Caps bench and a brawl ensured before order was restored.
Wilson later referred to the game as “chaotic” and told the media, “He’s a competitor and I’m a competitor. And the game of hockey ... that’s why everybody loves it.”
The April 10 game against the Canes this season provided one of Wilson’s more inglorious moments, however. Attempting to keep Canes forward Jackson Blake from scoring, he knocked Blake into Caps goalie Charlie Lindgren and then crashed into Lindgren in the net, all while pushing the puck over the goal line.
Tom Wilson is going to be Tom Wilson against the Hurricanes, good, bad but hardly indifferent. He knows no other way.
Weird sensation for Orlov
Canes defenseman Dmitry Orlov was a key part of the Caps’ Cup winners in 2018, played parts of 11 seasons with the Caps and is one of Ovechkin’s best friends.
Orlov likes to tell the story of being called up to the Caps from the AHL, arriving in town and turning in early to get a good night’s sleep before a team practice. Then, Ovechkin, asking Orlov to join Alex Semin and him for dinner – at 11 o’clock or so at night.
“He was like, ‘Hey, hey, what’s up? Ovi here, let’s go,’” Orlov said, smiling at the thought of the invite from the fun-loving Ovechkin and how late that night might have run. “I told him I would have to see him the next morning.”
Orlov, in his second season with Carolina, has faced off against “Ovi” and the Caps a few times, so they have been on the ice together as competitors. They’ll do it again, but the stakes will be higher this time, with no time for any fun-loving dinners.
The unpredictable
A playoff series can be fickle, unpredictable, with sudden injuries or fights or coaching moves – or a shot off someone’s rump – being the deciding factors.
Can a team convert on a big power play? Can a team kill off what could be a game-wrecking penalty. Who’s better 5 on 5? Who’s tougher? So much goes into a series.
Justin Williams, who won a Stanley Cup with Carolina and two more with the L.A. Kings, said a series often is decided by finally breaking the other team’s will, making the other guys want to quit. He was on the winning side enough to know.
Both the Hurricanes and Caps seem willing to go the distance and do whatever needs to be done to win four games and advance. Both have veteran players with much playoff experience, making them hard to rattle when the tension is at its thickest, much less back down.
In truth, 2019 seems like a long time ago now. The 2025 version of Canes-Caps in the playoffs should be enticing enough.
This story was originally published May 1, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
