Hurricanes, Canadiens Set for Game 1 As the Puck Drops

Game 1 is finally here, and both benches know the first few shifts usually tell you more than a full period of preseason chatter ever does. The Hurricanes and Canadiens are meeting with the kind of tension that turns every dump-in, every board battle, and every change on the fly into a mini-series of its own. In the playoffs, coaches start hunting matchups like they are trade deadlines, and the team that settles in first usually gets to write the early script.