Are the Canes going for a split or another sweep?

The Hurricanes haven’t made the NHL playoffs since 2009, and this is just their fifth appearance in the 21st Century. But four of the times, they’ve reached the Eastern Conference finals, including their only Stanley Cup championship in 2006.

This fast-closing wildcard entry is playing like they want to raise another cup, with a four-game sweep of the Islanders, one of the best teams in hockey for most of the season. Carolina won the first two games in Brooklyn, then came home to complete the sweep at PNC Arena before the suddenly crazed Canes crowd.

Now four more victories from the Stanley Cup finals, the Bunch of Jerks has created some magic that will be a challenge even for the hardened Bruins, a legendary franchise of the National Hockey League. When I was growing up in Boston, the Celtics and Red Sox were easy tickets to get and the Patriots were in the old American Football League playing their games at Harvard Stadium and Fenway Park before finding a home field.

But a Bruins ticket at the old Boston Garden was by far the toughest in town. Every game was a sellout, with ducats handed down from generation to generation of old money. Season tickets rarely turned over, and if your family had B’s seats, you had very wealthy parents and grandparents.

That’s what young Fin Sebastian Aho and the Canes will be facing when the puck drops at the new TD Garden Thursday night at 8. Waving towels wildly has become common at every pro hockey venue, but the Bruins gold rags have been flying around even longer than the Steelers’ terrible towels.

Names like Bobby Orr and Phil Esposito are etched in local history with the late Hondo Havlicek, Larry Bird and newbie Tom Brady who has been playing for the hometown team almost since the Hurricanes were called the Whalers in Hartford. This is deep into the playoffs, yes, but where tradition takes over.

It’s not the same as playing the Islanders, who moved to Brooklyn after their glory years in Nassau County. New Yorkers thought the magic of the early 1980s was back, but their team was gone in four games. Carolina will do well to steal one of the first two in Beantown.

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