It's really pretty amazing isn't it starting sometime this week We think Wednesday the Carolina Hurricanes and the Florida Panthers will play for the Eastern conference championship That's right Hurricanes were the second time in five years the second time in the Rod Brenda Moore era and the fifth time all time in Carolina Hurricane history have made it to the Eastern conference finals They did it with a five game series win over the New Jersey Devils after beating the Islanders in six games and they did it without Andre they did it without Max Patti and at least in this series they did it without Tebo Terra on it who they should get back at some point late in this series if it goes late because Florida is really good Remember Florida was a team that had the best record in the NHL Very much the same team Not exactly but very much the same team had the best record in all of hockey a year ago So it doesn't really surprise that the Panthers are back in this position They were great in the win over Boston They were great in the win over Toronto and now Carolina is going to have to be great to beat them They were pretty good against the Devils Carolina and what they did was they got to their game more often than not and their game is keeping the puck from the other team and Carolina was really good not always but really good against the Devils That's also the Devils game Carolina was just a little bit better at it and then of course they got some pretty remarkable performances Jordan Martin had an enormous series Jesper fast with the overtime series Ender Carolina has now won seven consecutive overtime games in the playoffs And in this playoff series in this playoff season mind you Carolina is 3 to 02 of those goals from Yes fast He had 10 all year He has five in the playoffs two of them overtime game winners So Freddie Anderson played for the most part except for a little spell from Peter Kako Freddie Anderson played the entire Devil Series I anticipate he will start the series against Florida I do fully expect to see both goaltenders but you never know there's no reason to change goalies as long as Freddie is playing well because there are no back to backs when you get to the conference finals Everything is at least every other day we'll see how it's spread out They haven't made that decision yet But if Carolina gets Tavo Terravion back and they're still in good shape I mean stranger things have happened Right Oh wait it's not a stranger thing The Hurricanes were the second best team in the NHL all year long Nobody should be surprised that they are here even so with all the player personnel issues it's kinda cool isn't it So we'll see you at the arena game one sometime this week We think Wednesday Hurricanes and Panthers Oh I totally forgot to to mention Rod Brenda against the first coach he played for with the Hurricanes Paul Maurice And how about the Stahl family reunion Our old friend Eric Stahl with Florida Mark Stahl brother defenseman with Florida and Jordan the captain of the Carolina Hurricanes man It's gonna be a blast We'll see you there