RALEIGH, N.C. — The top two rookies remaining in the Stanley Cup playoffs both play for the Carolina Hurricanes — one who was not expected to do this much this soon, and another no one knew would be wearing the red, black and white this spring.

Jackson Blake, the 2021 fourth-round find who is a few months shy of his 22nd birthday, made enough of an impression in his first NHL training camp to earn a spot with the team to start the season and never looked back, scoring 17 goals and playing on the team’s top power-play unit much of the year.

Logan Stankoven, meanwhile, had a bright future in Dallas after playing in nearly as many playoff games (19) as regular-season games (24) last season with the Stars — at least until the Mikko Rantanen experiment failed on the Hurricanes. Then Stankoven became Carolina GM Eric Tulsky’s prime target, and the Hurricanes acquired him in a deal that shipped Rantanen to the Lone Star State.

“It was mostly about the fit,” Tulsky said Monday. “Our coaches, our scouting staff, everybody who watched him said this is a guy who’s built to play for the Hurricanes. And so that was the No. 1 thing. On top of that, we know we’re getting skill, we know we’re getting competitiveness, we know we’re getting someone who can drop into our team and play the way we want to.”

Now the Hurricanes have a bigger rookie contingent than any of the league’s final four teams. But neither Stankoven nor Blake has been paralyzed by the moment. Stankoven can lean on his run to the Western Conference final with Dallas last year, while Blake was one of college hockey’s top players the previous two seasons.

“We’ve already had big moments, and they played great,” Hurricanes captain Jordan Staal said of the two rookies on the eve of the team’s Eastern Conference final matchup with the Florida Panthers. “I don’t think that the moments really feel much different. It might get heightened a little bit, but they’re big-time players and they’re here for a reason. I don’t really have any doubts.”

Blake and Stankoven have modest but respectable playoff numbers. Stankoven’s three goals match Aleksander Barkov and Connor McDavid, and with five points apiece, he and Blake are even with Dallas mainstays Tyler Seguin and Matt Duchene and have outscored veterans like Edmonton’s Adam Henrique and the Stars’ Jamie Benn.

Points, however, aren’t everything, and what’s perhaps been most impressive about the two rookies is how they’ve been able to hold their own in coach Rod Brind’Amour’s structured system.

“They’re both really skilled and offensive-minded,” said Sebastian Aho, a player who has blossomed into one of the game’s top two-way forwards under Brind’Amour. “But then again, they can play the game the right way. In the playoffs, it’s not always scoring goals or making nice passes. Obviously you would like to see those too, but there’s a lot to it, and they’ve definitely been great players for us.”

Blake ran shotgun to Aho on the Hurricanes’ top line at the end of the season and through the start of the playoffs, while Stankoven spent time during the regular season playing alongside Staal and Jordan Martinook on Carolina’s shutdown line — roles that aren’t handed out without merit by Brind’Amour.

Both are in different spots heading into the series with the Panthers: Blake is opposite Eric Robinson on a line centered by Jesperi Kotkaniemi, and Stankoven and Taylor Hall are being centered by Jack Roslovic.

Stankoven said he’s taking the lessons learned from his trip with the Stars to the conference final last year — along with a pair of deep playoff runs with the WHL’s Kamloops Blazers — and applying them to this postseason.

“Even dating back to my last two years of junior, I made the conference final both years as well. And when you go so far and you come up short, it’s a tough feeling,” said Stankoven, sounding like one of the Hurricanes who has experienced being swept twice in the conference final rather than a playoff neophyte. “For me, it’s like, ‘Hey, it’s time to get over that hump.’ And it would be a dream come true to play in the finals.

“It’s really motivating, and you never know when you get that opportunity again. So you make the most of it, and you do it for the guys in the room, to guys that have been playing for a long time and want to win a Cup.”

He can’t look around the Hurricanes’ locker room without seeing a player who has played a decade or more in the NHL but hasn’t won a championship — from 2010 No. 1 pick Hall and Norris Trophy winner Brent Burns to oft-maligned goalie Frederik Andersen and heart-and-soul warrior Martinook.

And the infusion of youth — Carolina has used rookie Alexander Nikishin in one game this postseason, with Scott Morrow also a plug-and-play option on defense — can give a boost to those who are perhaps wondering if their chance to lift the Cup will ever come.

“It definitely brings energy in a room and on the ice,” said Aho, who has gone from a young, emerging star to now being in his ninth season, probably with fewer chances left than he’s already had. “Sometimes it’s good to have a couple of rookies there to bring some fresh legs. I feel like both are definitely, first off, adapted to the NHL level, and (they) obviously proved that they’re definitely NHL players. But then in these playoffs, they can play, right? They can play different ways.”

The rookies are also quickly learning the difference between their prior experience and this current one.

“College was just one game and you’re done,” Blake said during the series against the New Jersey Devils. “So I like this, honestly. I’ve never played in a seven-game series in my life — the most I’ve played is five in USHL. … I think the team that wears the other team down the most usually comes out successful.”

That fits the Hurricanes’ mindset, and Brind’Amour has been quick to say neither looks out of place despite the rookie label.

“He’s still a young kid,” Brind’Amour said of Blake, “but I think his play certainly doesn’t look like he’s a first-timer in this environment. … He’s not afraid of the moment. We knew that anyway, just the way he played all year. But he’s still just a kid.”

One of two kids the Hurricanes are more than comfortable counting on — and who already feel like part of the bigger goal.

“I feel right at home, and it feels like I’ve been here for quite a while now, a couple years,” said Stankoven. “But obviously it’s only been a few months.”

(Top photo of Jackson Blake: Jared C. Tilton / Getty Images)