RALEIGH, N.C. — Welcome to Carolina, the only place in the world where hurricanes are labelled boring.
Not that the Carolina Hurricanes should care. Especially after taking the shortest path of any NHL team to arrive at this juncture — halfway to the Stanley Cup.
Here they are, prepared to open the conference final at Lenovo Center off four days’ rest after swiftly dispatching the East’s top team in just five games to follow up a five-game win over the New Jersey Devils in Round 1. And if hockey fans or pundits aren’t entertained by Rod Brind’Amour’s blue-collar troop, that’s their problem.
The only thing that should concern the Hurricanes is whether they can finally prove their brand of dump-it-out, dump-it-in, full-ice-press hockey can prevail this deep into the season.
We certainly don’t have any questions about how their opponents, the Florida Panthers, go about their business.
The reigning champs made the Maple Leafs look like chumps in consecutive 6-1 wins in Toronto to advance to Round 3, and they’ve arrived in Raleigh intent on once again pushing the Hurricanes to late-May tee times at Pinehurst.
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The Panthers did it two years ago — sweeping the 113-point, Metropolitan Division-winning Hurricanes en route to their first Cup Final appearance since 1996 — and Brind’Amour told reporters on Monday that he thinks they’ll present an even greater challenge to his team this time around.
“They got better, in my opinion,” he said of the team that hoisted the Cup in 2024 before adding Seth Jones and Brad Marchand to the mix prior to the 2025 trade deadline.
As for the Hurricanes, there’s been a lot of change to the personnel since 2023…
But not to the identity.
So, the question is: Can the Hurricanes generate a different result with it this time?
Down the stretch of last season, we engaged with a couple of different coaches and general managers to ask them if they thought man-on-man coverage could be successfully sustained through a full playoff run by a team that employs that system at full throttle through all 82 games of the regular season.
“The further you get, the thinner the margins, and when all it takes is one breakdown for you to lose… You’re bound to have a lot more than one playing that way all over the ice, so I don’t know if that style can win,” said one coach.
“You constantly have to raise your level through the playoffs, but they play at such a high one all season that you can’t help but question if there might not be a next level for them to access at a certain point,” said a GM.
By the time the 111-point Hurricanes were dispatched by the New York Rangers in Round 2 of last year’s playoffs — after the 113-point Hurricanes were swept by the Panthers in 2023, the 116-point Hurricanes were dealt a second-round loss to the Rangers in 2022, and the 2021 Central-leading Hurricanes lost in five games of Round 2 to the Tampa Bay Lightning — the questions stopped coming.
If the Hurricanes ever had them about themselves, they were resolved in the immediate aftermath of the playoffs.
Brind’Amour was given a multi-year contract extension by then-president and general manager Don Waddell on May 19, just three days after the Hurricanes were eliminated.
Five days later, Waddell resigned, and Eric Tulsky was promoted.
The new GM didn’t seek to change the team’s style, though. Instead, he doubled down on it with a series of moves that he felt could better arm Brind’Amour to coax it into prevailing this time around.
Jack Roslovic, William Carrier, Riley Stillman, Shayne Gostisbehere and Sean Walker were signed as free agents. Martin Necas and Jack Drury were moved in-season to acquire Taylor Hall and Mikko Rantanen. And when Rantanen decided he wouldn’t stay with the Hurricanes, he was flipped to Dallas for picks and Logan Stankoven.
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When Tulsky was asked on Monday about why he targeted that last player, he said, “It was mostly about the fit.”
“Our coaches, our scouting staff, everybody who watched him said this was a guy who’s built to play for the Hurricanes. That was the No. 1 thing,” Tulsky continued. “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, and the experience is a nice bonus.”
The 22-year-old may only have 102 regular-season games under his belt, but he played 19 playoff games with the Stars in last year’s run to Game 6 of the Western Conference Final against the Edmonton Oilers, and that should serve him and the Hurricanes well against the Panthers.
Stankoven’s Carolina teammates, who have been at the core of Brind’Amour’s team for years, have also learned some valuable lessons along the way.
“I think guys that have been through it understand that maybe a bit more now because they have been through it,” he said, “and maybe that’s what’ll be the difference.”
Frederik Andersen can help, too.
The Hurricanes goaltender leads the playoffs with a 1.37 goals-against average and a .937 save percentage. If he keeps that up, there will be no stopping this team.
Special teams helped stifle the Hurricanes in their series with the Rangers last year, but they’re currently riding a power play that’s clicking at 28.1 per cent and a penalty kill that’s been more efficient — at over 93 per cent — than any other this post-season.
And though you may consider it boring, they have no doubt entertained themselves by completely suffocating their opposition at five-on-five.
“I don’t know that in my 10 years here we’ve had a team that’s the way this one is, in terms of every single player being a fit for the way we want to play, being bought in, competing as hard as they can,” said Tulsky. “This group is made to play Carolina Hurricanes hockey. That puts us in a good situation, a good position to win.”
The Panthers have to feel good about theirs.
They crushed the Lightning in five games before dismantling the Leafs from down 2-0 in the series and 3-1 in Game 5, and their performance in Sunday’s Game 7 in Toronto showed to what extent they’ve mastered their brand of hockey.
The Hurricanes have employed theirs to great success throughout Brind’Amour’s tenure, except at this time of year.
They may never win over the crowd that thinks it’s boring, but this is their best opportunity to show that it can win.
Expected Hurricanes lines and pairings:
Andrei Svechnikov-Sebastian Aho-Seth Jarvis
Taylor Hall-Jack Roslovic-Logan Stankoven
Jordan Martinook-Jordan Staal-William Carrier
Eric Robinson-Jesperi Kotkaniemi-Jackson Blake
Jaccob Slavin-Brent Burns
Dmitry Orlov-Sean Walker
Shayne Gostisbehere-Jalen Chatfield/Scott Morrow
Frederik Anderson
*Chatfield took morning skate and could make his return to Carolina’s lineup after not playing Game 5 against the Washington Capitals.
Expected Panthers lines and pairings:
Evan Rodrigues-Aleksander Barkov-Sam Reinhart
Carter Verhaeghe-Sam Bennett-Matthew Tkachuk
Eetu Luostarinen-Anton Lundell-Brad Marchand
A.J. Greer-Tomas Nosek-Jonah Gadjovich
Gustav Forsling-Aaron Ekblad
Niko Mikkola-Seth Jones
Nate Schmidt-Dmitry Kulikov
Sergei Bobrovsky
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