Will the Hurricanes deliver a knockout blow to the Devils in Game 5?

The NHL Eastern Conference semifinal playoff series between the New Jersey Devils and Carolina Hurricanes can be summed up in three words: high-scoring blowouts.

All four games in the best-of-7 clash have been decided by at least four goals. The winning team has scored at least five times in each game. And the Over has cashed in all four.

Fortunately for the Hurricanes, they’ve ended up on the right side of three of the one-sided laughers. As a result, they’re one victory away from advancing to the Eastern Conference finals.

Will Carolina get that victory Thursday night at home in Game 5? All signs point to yes — and all signs point to it being yet another emphatic victory.

Odds updated as of 10:30 a.m. ET on May 10.

There’s an old adage in team sports that heartache must be experienced before exhilaration can be enjoyed.

Put another way, you gotta take your lumps before realizing success.

That adage has relevance in this series, with the talented-but-young Devils struggling to get the better of an experienced Hurricanes squad that has been around the playoff block a few times in recent years.

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Carolina has reached the postseason in each of coach Rod Brind’Amour’s five seasons at the helm. While the Canes ended a nine-year playoff drought by making a surprising run to the conference finals in 2018-19, they got bounced in the first round the following year.

They also bowed out in the second round each of the last two seasons.

Last year was particularly brutal for Carolina, as it took a 3-2 second-round series lead against the New York Rangers. The Rangers held serve at home in Game 6, then became the first road team to notch a win in the series when they rolled to a 6-2 victory in Game 7.

That bitter ending still lingers in the mouths of the Hurricanes, whose roster includes a bunch of holdovers from last season. And they’re determined to eradicate it by dispatching New Jersey as quickly as possible.

As for the Devils, they fought through adversity in the first round against the Rangers — the franchise’s first playoff series in five years and just its second since losing in the 2011-2012 Stanley Cup Final.

New Jersey dropped the first two games to New York at home, then rebounded to win four of the final five to steal the series.

But against Carolina, budding superstar Jack Hughes and his mates are learning just how much the intensity level and quality of competition rises — and how much the margin for error thins — with each passing postseason round.

They’re also learning how lapses on the ice — especially against veteran teams — can swing momentum in a hurry.

Case in point: After bouncing back from a pair of ugly series-opening losses in Carolina with an 8-4 blowout win at home in Game 3, the Devils took a quick 1-0 lead in Game 4 when Hughes found the back of the net less than two minutes after puck drop.

All looked rosy for New Jersey until the Canes got the equalizer late in the first. Then the roof caved in on the Devils when Carolina scored four times in a 5½-minute span of the second period.

Just like that, New Jersey faced an insurmountable 5-1 deficit on the way to a 6-1 home loss.

Again, playoff growing pains.

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Now 48 hours after absorbing that shell-shocking defeat, the Devils have to walk back into the Hurricanes’ barn knowing what happened the last time they were there (two losses by a combined 11-2 score) and knowing their season is on the line.

Carolina, of course, knows all this, too. The Canes also know they’ve made life hell for New Jersey’s goaltenders in this series.

Veteran Vitek Vanecek and rookie Akira Schmid have surrendered a whopping 21 goals on 117 shots in four games. That pencils out to an atrocious, fourth string-like .821 save percentage.

And it’s not just one or two skaters who have been torturing Vanecek and Schmid, as 12 different Hurricanes have lit the lamp in this series.

Which is yet another reason why Carolina has a 3-1 lead: Brind’Amour’s club not only is more experienced but it’s deeper and more versatile.

Ten different Hurricanes have scored at least two goals in the playoffs but only one — veteran forward Sebastian Aho — has as many as five. And 11 different Hurricanes have at least five points.

Those kinds of teams that can roll four productive lines onto the ice for 60 solid minutes are extremely tough to beat.

Vanecek, Schmid, Hughes and the rest of the Devils are discovering just that. And we’re betting they will do so again Thursday night.

Back the Hurricanes to record one last blowout victory — and deliver a nice 2-to-1 payout on the puck line.

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