Rangers-Hurricanes a familiar rivalry with plenty of new twists

Otherwise, the two years that have passed offer up a much different matchup.

One that can't be compared to the Blueshirts' seven-game triumph two seasons ago, which unfolded under different circumstances and resulted in the club's first trip to the Eastern Conference final since 2015.

This time around it is a guaranteed postseason spectacle between the two Metropolitan Division powerhouses.

Two clubs who are well into a tug-of-war for conference supremacy that is expected to continue for years to come.

Contrary to how some are evaluating this series, there really is no underdog.

"I think they've been the standard of the division for the last couple years," captain Jacob Trouba said of the Hurricanes after the Rangers returned to practice Wednesday following two days off. "This year they had a great season. Coming into this year, that's a team you want to overtake, you want to be ahead of them in the standings. It's no different in the playoffs.

"They've been a consistently good team for years now. I think we've gotten better over the years. It's going to be a great series."

The nucleus of each team features the same faces, but both clubs have undergone their own changes since meeting in the playoffs.

The Rangers have a new coach in Peter Laviolette.

Vincent Trocheck flipped teams, leaving the Canes as a free agent at the end of that 2021-22 season and signing in New York.

Carolina picked up a couple of big-time players in Jake Guentzel and Evgeni Kuznetsov at this year's trade deadline.

What hasn't changed is the Hurricanes' style of play and the challenge that they pose.

That remains the same from the last time the Rangers saw them in the playoffs.

"I remember we played really good hockey the first two games," Ryan Lindgren said. "Didn't win, came back home, won the next two. It was just a back-and-forth series. Game 7, obviously, we played really well and were able to move on, but a really good team [in Carolina]. We're a really good team, we're both playing well right now. I think it's going to be a really good series."

Added Trouba: "The emotion. I remember it being a very emotional series. The speed. Obviously, the highs and lows. It went back and forth a lot. It was a great series, it came down to the very end."

Laviolette said he will not show the Rangers film from the 2022 series.

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If anything, the focus appears to be on the games between the two teams this regular season.

The Rangers won two of the three, but the 'Canes held a 7-4 edge in scoring thanks to the 6-1 beating they handed down in early January.

"I can tell you that the way the three games went, I thought we played really well," said Laviolette, who won his one and only Stanley Cup with the Hurricanes in 2006 when their current, coach Rod Brind'Amour, was his captain. "The first game, I liked the way we played, and that was my [previous] point: We've got to make sure that we're playing the game we want to play. We know it's going to be fast, we know it's going to be competitive. I think when we're at [our] best and you watch them, that's when they're at their best. They're on the attack, they're checking forward, they're pressing, pressing, pressing.

"You have to be ready for that. You have to be ready from a speed standpoint, that compete standpoint. In the second game that we watched, I felt like we were on our heels a little bit. I don't feel like it was one of our better games. The third game for me was a real gutsy effort and gutsy win.

"The games were pretty, pretty tight. Fairly close to the vest. But this is different, it's the playoffs now. It's a different animal, and we'll have to be ready for Game 1."