Well after being totally screwed by the referees early in the game, Carolina managed to fight through the first period in which they got 4 penalties to the devils NONE (trust me, they COMMITTED penalties) with a 1-1 tie. Then they also had to kill off another penalty to start the second period, after which the Canes must've just decided they weren't going to get ANY calls and just worked around that fact. They finally did get a power play opportunity and took a 2-1 lead, and that's all they needed (though they did end up getting a couple of third period goals including an empty netter to keep Staal's point streak (10) alive).
Two of the calls in the first period were BS calls... one was an interference call against Brindy who never touched anyone, and another was a tripping call where reply conclusively showed the guy tripping over the freaking NET - no Hurricane player touched him.
But even with the help of the obviously biased refs, the devils were sent to the golf courses.
Props to Laviolette for starting rookie Cam Ward again after pulling him just over 20 minutes into game 4. Ward gave up an early goal (it was a really good goal though!) but then really stood up during that first period in which he faced 11 shots. The remainder of the game - well, he had the best seat in the house to WATCH the game. The devils only put up 7 shots on goal the rest of the game I think.
Round 3 will feature Carolina vs. Buffalo in the east. Probably two of the most surprising teams in the eastern conference because they did the best job of predicting how the new NHL would look and what would be successful - both teams are fast skating and skilled with an up and down the ice quick flowing style that should lead to some pretty exciting hockey.
Unfortunately for the Canes, there's a lot of Buffalo fans in the area, so we'll probably have a few thousand opponents fans in the arena - which really (if you ask me) only makes the atmosphere better. Not that we need it during the playoffs, but hey, I kind of enjoy having a few of the opponents fans nearby.
