FanHouse RodBrindAmour

It must be tough to be a Carolina Hurricanes fan. Consider this for a moment: twice in the last seven years the franchise formerly known as the Hartford Whalers has fought its way to the Stanley Cup Finals -- winning it all in the first year after the lockout in 2006 -- only to miss the playoffs the following two seasons.

In any other market, such a performance would be devastating. But in a non-traditional market like Raleigh, North Carolina, it very well could have been fatal. A Stanley Cup is supposed to cement a team's place in the heart of a community that it calls home, but runs like the team had in 2002 and 2006 were supposed to be performances to build on to fill the build, not memories to fall back on with failure just around the corner.

That a team with such a recent championship on its resume finished 21st overall in attendance this season has to be considered something of an embarrassment.

But here the Hurricanes are again, like the NHL's version of Hailey's comet, just four games from a third trip the Finals in the last six NHL seasons, with only the defending Eastern Conference champions, the Pittsburgh Penguins, in the way. Granted, that's one heck of an obstacle, but it still begs the question: how the heck did it happen?

Tonight the Bruins and Hurricanes played a hockey game that went about as close as any game could. The two teams went toe-to-toe for nearly four periods, matching each other in every facet of the game. Goaltenders Cam Ward and Tim Thomas showed why they were big reasons as to how their teams made it to this point, making 35 and 34 saves respectively. Fittingly, the game headed to overtime and the Bruins would fall thanks to a familiar foe.

During Game 5 Scott Walker received a game misconduct for a punch -- or sucker punch depending on your view -- to the face of Aaron Ward. The NHL decided to rescind the automatic one game suspension that comes with an ejection and let him play, drawing the ire of Boston and many in the media. Tonight, Walker made a few more enemies in Boston by netting the game winning goal with 1:14 to go in overtime.

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After losing three straight games for just the third time this season, the Boston Bruins were facing elimination on Sunday night against the Carolina Hurricanes. The Bruins, behind a 19-save shutout by Tim Thomas, managed to keep their season rolling with a commanding 4-0 win at TD Banknorth Garden.

Following Boston's 4-1 loss in Carolina on Friday, head coach Claude Julien made mention that his team picked a bad time to be playing its worst hockey of the season, getting outscored by a 10-3 margin during its three-game skid. For one night, all of that was forgotten as the Bruins played a relatively perfect game in every phase.

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With the NHL playoffs just around the corner, FanHouse takes a look at some of the lesser-known teams that qualified. Friday's installment: the Carolina Hurricanes

When the Whalers left Hartford back in 1997 to become the Carolina Hurricanes, they left a lot of things behind: the best jerseys in the NHL, Brass Bonanza, and, perhaps, most importantly, a losing tradition. In their 18 seasons in Hartford, the Whalers qualified for the playoffs eight times, and only once advanced beyond the first round.

Since moving to Carolina, the team has played in the Stanley Cup Final twice (2002 and 2006) while ultimately winning it all during the 2005-06 campaign. Heading into the playoffs this year, the Hurricanes are one of the hottest teams in the NHL, steamrolling the opposition. So, who are these guys?

The New York Islanders, playing without Trent Hunter, Kyle Okposo, Dean McAmmond, and Andy Hilbert were simply in over their heads on Tuesday night against the runaway locomotive that is the Carolina Hurricanes, falling 9-0. Amazingly, the score isn't the most incredible series of numbers to come out of this game.

Honestly, we haven't seen a hockey game this one-sided since the Slovakia Women's National Team annihilated Bulgaria, 82-0, earlier this year. OK, maybe it wasn't quite that bad.

Newsmakers in the NHL is a weekday morning attempt to clear yesterday's rebounds and look to the day ahead.

Ducks 7, Avalanche 2: This game won't be showing up on the career highlight film for Andrew Raycroft, as the veteran netminder surrendered four goals on just eight shots during the second period of Anaheim's 7-2 thrashing of Colorado. Corey Perry scored a pair of goals for the Ducks, while rookie Andrew Ebbett added a goal and two assists in the win.

Blackhawks 3, Hurricanes 2: The Carolina Hurricanes had their four-game winning streak snapped thanks to a 3-2 shootout loss in Chicago, though they still managed to gain an important point thanks to Tuomo Ruutu's game-tying goal with just 27 seconds to play in regulation, sending the game to overtime.

With the Hurricanes trailing, 2-1, Chicago's Jonathan Toews was called for hooking Carolina's Chad LaRose late in the third period. Just 36 seconds later, Ruutu beat Cristobal Huet for his 21st goal of the season.

Hurricanes 3, Rangers 0: The good news for the Carolina Hurricanes is they seem to be playing their best hockey of the season at the absolute right time. The bad news is they still can't seem to gain any separation in the tight Eastern Conference playoff race.

Thanks to the Hurricanes 3-0 win over the New York Rangers on Monday, they jumped over three teams to move into a tie with Montreal for the No. 5 spot in the conference, but are guaranteed to fall as low as the No. 7 spot on Tuesday, depending on what happens in the Pittsburgh-Florida game. It's going to be like this every day for the rest of the regular season.

Through their first 19 games the San Jose Sharks have, quite simply, been men among boys. They continued their early season dominance on Sunday, coming from behind in Chicago to pull out a 6-5 win, improving to 15-3-1 on the season. The Sharks' 31 points are currently leading the NHL, three points ahead of the Rangers who have played one more game.

Entering the third period down a goal, Dan Boyle scored his second goal of the night to tie the score at five, while Devin Setoguchi (are you voting for him yet?) put in the winner with just under five minutes to play in regulation.

The Sharks had to rally in the third after watching Chicago erase a 4-2 deficit in the second period, as they received goals from Kris Versteeg, Cam Barker and Patrick Kane in the final ten minutes of the period. Barker and Kane's goals came just 30 seconds apart.

Naturally, as is the case when 11 goals are scored, it wasn't a night for the goalies, as Chicago's Cristobal Huet turned aside only 25 of 31 shots, while Brian Boucher allowed five pucks to get behind him in the win.

Blackhawks defenseman Brian Campbell, playing in his first game against his former team, picked up a goal and two assists in the loss. Campbell was acquired by the Sharks, from Buffalo, during last season's trade deadline in exchange for Steve Bernier and a first-round pick.

Chicago has now lost three straight.

Credit Matt Crossman of The Sporting News for getting an interesting interview with Dr. Thomas Long, a former member of the Darthmouth men's hockey team and now the team dentist for the Carolina Hurricanes. Considering that Detroit's Kris Draper scored the first goal of Game Six of the Western Conference Finals off his face, it's a pretty timely, and at times, gruesome piece.

Dr. Long has some interesting stories to tell, including one about the time Rod Brind'Amour picked up some other player's teeth off the ice with his stick. And when those teeth do come out, Dr. Long's job is pretty simple: Use wire and glue to put a player's face back together as best as he can, and then get that body back on the ice.

I almost hate to pull this out, but here's the money quote, the one that tells you that Dr. Long is a hockey fan who has found the right line of work:

We put one guy who got cut back together. We started at the end of the first period. We got him finally done by halfway through the third. I could see the carotid artery just bumping. It was unbelievable. It was like an anatomy specimen. Yeah, it's a dirty job. But I love it.

I'm sure he does.