Dimitri Filipovich

I think it's still too early.

I guess the takeaway is like things are opening up pretty nicely for the Hurricanes.

Not only because, you know, and you just said the model where like the Senators were a top three to four most likely team in their own conference to make it to the Stanley Cup finals.

So this was viewed as probably one of the toughest matchups they were going to face on their way to a potential Stanley Cup final appearance.

And now with the Lightning, I know they won game two and dominated that overtime, but I think the Habs are very live as an underdog in that series.

If they're able to pull off that upset, you look at the path ahead for the Hurricanes through the East, and it's the Flyers where they're going to have home ice, and then...

either Buffalo or Montreal, most likely, in the East Final, two teams that are very unproven and inexperienced.

And this would be a miracle season for them just to get to the East Final this year to begin with.

Like, this is seemingly as good of a path as the Hurricanes have had at any point throughout this entire era, despite the fact that this was the season where they made no trade deadline ads, really.

Yeah, I think in the Utah case, as your listeners won't be surprised to hear, I think they should just be outright the favorite in that series.

Like, I saw nothing in the first two games to dissuade me from that opinion.

Gunther and Cooley are the two best players in that series and have dominated these two games despite the fact that I know Yamamoto had a couple assists in game two, but...

They've left a lot of meat on the bone with him just not having really the talent to make the most of what they create.

And now heading back home, I think that crowd's going to be crazy.

I think Utah's in a really good spot.

The Montreal one's interesting because, Tom, I know you love yourself some John Cooper, and we all do, and he's probably the best coach in the league.

I have not loved what I've seen from him.

in terms of the job he's done behind the bench in this series, because I'm not sure he entirely knows who his best players are.

He was very, very preoccupied with chasing matchups in these first two games, like to the point where I think in game two, Nikita Kucherov did not see the ice for the first four minutes of the game because the Habs kept sending out their top line and he's like, well, I need to have

Sorel and Hegel out there.