What to know for the Stanley Cup final

To be honest, a lot of air went out of the Stanley Cup playoffs when the Montreal Canadiens were eliminated last Friday. Love 'em or hate 'em, the Habs were a major driver of interest as an Original Six team with an extremely passionate fan base trying to end Canada's decades-long NHL championship drought.

Having said that, we still ended up with a pretty good matchup between the Vegas Golden Knights and the Carolina Hurricanes, who open the best-of-seven Cup final on Tuesday.

Here's a primer on the two teams and some of the interesting storylines to watch.

The Hurricanes have taken the league by storm.

In part because they play in a non-traditional hockey market, and also because of their reputation for flaming out in the second or third round of the playoffs, many hockey fans were reluctant to buy into the 'Canes this year. But even their biggest critics must now admit they're the real deal.

After finishing second in the overall regular-season standings and earning the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference, Carolina has gone an incredible 12-1 in the playoffs, becoming the first team to reach the Stanley Cup final with fewer than two losses since the NHL made all four rounds a best-of-seven in 1987.

The Hurricanes' only loss came in Game 1 of the Eastern final against Montreal, when they were coming off an 11-day layoff following their sweeps of Ottawa and Philadelphia. They rebounded with back-to-back overtime wins over the Canadiens before dominating the last two games by a combined score of 10-1 to reach the franchise's first Cup final since 2006, when a seven-game victory over Edmonton gave Carolina its first championship.

This time, the Hurricanes are slight favourites over the Golden Knights, with the current