How a playoff veteran is setting just the right tone for the Carolina Hurricanes

William Carrier of the Carolina Hurricanes has a Stanley Cup championship ring, and he knows what it took to get it.

Physicality, for one thing. In the playoffs, it’s about hitting and being hit. It’s about the wear and tear those hits can have as a series stretches on and the bruises mount.

Carrier won a Cup with the Vegas Golden Knights in 2023, beating the Florida Panthers in the Stanley Cup Final. He’s now doing all he can to help the Hurricanes get a ring.

The Canes took a 2-0 series lead over the Ottawa Senators on Monday with a 3-2 double-overtime win decided on Jordan Martinook’s goal. In the myriad statistics from the four-hour game was one that stood out: 12 hits by Carrier.

Twelve hits? It was a franchise record for a Hurricanes playoff game and came in the winger’s 15:37 of ice time.

Not that it should be that surprising. Carrier, 31, was signed to a six-year, $12 million free-agent contract by Carolina in 2024 to add hard-earned experience and more thump and sandpaper play to the lineup.

“Everyone knows his style of play, which is obviously effective this time of year, or any time of year,” Canes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “But I think it ramps up more this time of year. And what’s more critical is he’s been through this many times and he knows what it takes to get to the finish line.”

And what does it take to get to that line and raise the Cup?

“It’s a marathon, right?” Carrier said in an N&O interview. “It’s a marathon but you have to do it shift to shift. That’s the key. Any one shift can be the difference and you have to make sure every shift counts. And if you have a bad one, put it behind you, go back to work and win the next shift.

“A perfect game doesn’t exist in the playoffs. It’s all about mistakes, and the team that makes the less mistakes usually ends up winning. That’s why every shift has to count.

“Any little detail, on any one play, can make the whole difference. It could be on the first play of the game, it could be the last play of the game. It could be a penalty, could be anything. You’ve just got to stay focused.”

Part of the Canes’ playoff focus has been on matching any degree of physicality the Senators want to present. In Game 1, Sens captain Brady Tkachuk challenged Canes captain Jordan Staal to drop the gloves after the opening faceoff. Staal did and Tkachuk may have second-guessed his decision as Staal got in the heaviest shots.

Carrier was limited to about seven minutes of playing time and had three hits in a game that had Carolina credited with 57. But he was constantly on the move and checking with a purpose in Game 2, making a bigger impact. He made his 22 shifts count.

Midway through the second overtime, Carrier hammered defenseman Nikolas Matinpalo into the boards in the Sens zone as Matinpalo played the puck. Matinpalo was momentarily left on all fours on the ice, his helmet askew, after the collision with No. 28 in black.

It wasn’t quite like the hit Carrier landed on forward Marc Gatcomb of the New York Islanders in the April 4 game at Lenovo Center. That one turned Gatcomb upside down and had him on his head for a split-second.

“He’s been great for us,” general manager Eric Tulsky said Tuesday. “The way we play, we spend a lot of time battling teams, winning puck battles along the wall. The D comes down and pinches and jams things up and you need someone who can come in and dislodge it.

“He can do that. He brings a lot pressure. He brings a lot of physicality. He makes us harder to play against and makes it a long night for the other team’s defensemen. That’s part of what we want to do and part of how we play.”

The best-of-seven Eastern Conference series now moves to Ottawa, where Games 3 and 4 will be played at Canadian Tire Centre, in the suburb of Kanata. Game 3 is Thursday, allowing both teams a little extra time to recover from Monday’s marathon.

The Canes, making their eighth straight playoff appearance, have won the opening series in each of the past seven years. Asked if payoff expeience can be the difference, Carrier quickly nodded.

“Oh, a lot,” he said. “It’s a whole different game and everyone knows it.”

Chip Alexander

The News & Observer

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In more than 40 years at The N&O, Chip Alexander has covered the N.C. State, UNC, Duke and East Carolina beats, and now is in his 15th season on the Carolina Hurricanes beat. Alexander, who has won numerous writing awards at the state and national level, covered the Hurricanes’ move to North Carolina in 1997 and was a part of The N&O’s coverage of the Canes’ 2006 Stanley Cup run.