Our divisional preview carries on past Washington and Philadelphia (after tagging up the NYC area recapping the summers of the Devils, Rangers and Islanders) and makes a stop in Raleigh. The Hurricanes have become one of the league’s most stable teams; they’ve made the playoffs for seven straight seasons and won at least the first round in each of the last five years.
That’s been the good news, creating such a solid, consistent and well-performing team is an admirable accomplishment. From there, the bad news has been the later rounds of the playoffs, and perhaps more directly the bad news has taken the form of the Florida Panthers. The Panthers have eliminated the Hurricanes in two of the last three seasons (in 2023 and 2025), and in emphatic fashion with a 8-1 aggregate in games played. (And, let’s face it, probably the only thing stopping us from talking about it being 3/3 with FLA/CAR series is that the Hurricanes lost to the Rangers in the second round in ‘24, since Florida would have been waiting for them in the ECF that year too).
In that way, Carolina is kind of like Tampa — a very good team but a victim of the success that Florida has had. It’s just that the divisional format sends Tampa to their fate in the early rounds of the playoffs, whereas the Hurricanes get to win a couple of rounds before they have to deal with the mighty Panthers.
That very real playoff ceiling in place, Carolina has gotten aggressive with efforts to improve and get over the proverbial hump.
Additions: The Hurricanes took a pair of big swings over the summer. The marquee add was getting Nikolaj Ehlers to sign a $51 million contract over six years ($8.5m annual cap hit) to leave Winnipeg in the biggest pure free agent signing (since Mitch Marner to Vegas was a sign-and-trade). Then, in other the biggest trade of the offseason so far, Carolina nabbed defender K’Andre Miller from the NY Rangers and signed him up to a massive $60 million contract over eight years ($7.5 million cap hit).
Losses: Those incoming moves meant some players also departed. Veteran defender Brent Burns skated away in free agency to Colorado after three seasons in Carolina….Defender Dmitry Orlov (San Jose) also left via free agency, as did forward Jack Roslovic. The Canes also traded prospect Scott Morrow to the Rangers in the Miller acquisition.
Projected lineup (from nhl.com)
Nikolaj Ehlers — Sebastian Aho — Seth Jarvis
Andrei Svechnikov — Jesperi Kotkaniemi — Jackson Blake
Taylor Hall — Jordan Staal — Logan Stankoven
Jordan Martinook — William Carrier — Eric Robinson
Jaccob Slavin / K’Andre Miller
Alexander Nikishin / Jalen Chatfield
Shayne Gostisbehere / Sean Walker
Frederik Andersen
Pyotr Kochetkov
Carolina hasn’t done anything differently in two key areas of need (a second line center and reliable starting goalie) but the rest of the lineup is extremely well-rounded.
The addition of Ehlers (60+ points in each of the last two seasons) will be welcomed for a team that returns only three 40+ point forwards (Aho, Jarvis, Svechnikov) from last season. Bringing in Ehlers nicely fills the Mikko Rantanen/Martin Necas-sized hole in the top-six after Carolina resorted to trading both within the last year.
The revamped blueline will be interesting as well, Orlov never really fit in and over the years Carolina has lost names like Brett Pesce, Brady Skjei and now Burns. Miller’s game was picked apart in New York but should slot in nicely to a more structured team and system. Big things are expected from the big defender Nikishin, an NHL rookie but also a player about to turn 24-years old and who was one of the top defensemen in the KHL before jumping over.
Can the new look change the script? You know what you’re going to get out of Carolina, they are a well-coached, well-built team that will dominate possession and pile up the regular season wins. They aren’t accepting their fate and have been bold to improve, getting Rantanen was a huge swing and salvaged well to flip him for assets like Stankoven and the draft pick used to get Miller (not to mention the cap space to get Ehlers). The first 88ish games of the season almost don’t even matter until the get deeper into the playoffs and try to earn what has eluded them for a while now with postseason success. Is this the right mix to get it?
What upgrades will they make? The Hurricanes are sitting on over $10 million in cap space, according to CapWages. That’s an almost unheard of amount of room for a contender to have to work with in the NHL landscape. There are those glaring holes, this team could badly use a second line center, their goaltending is seemingly always in flux and even the blueline might need a stout body or two. If you could pencil in, say, Mason McTavish out of RFA purgatory in Anaheim to this lineup, it would look even better. That might be too tall a task, but given their aggressiveness, somewhere during the season Carolina is in position to add a difference-maker to an already impressive lineup and likely will do it. Who it will be and how much it helps is what is worth watching.
Potential OutcomesHere we paint some pictures of a semi-realistic best and worst case scenarios for the upcoming season..
Reasonable best case scenario — The best case is also the rare time for what to almost certainly expect. The Hurricanes will, if not win the division, than at least finish second and set themselves up for a playoff run, just as they have in each of the last five seasons. This time, perhaps health, luck and all the other small factors will be in their favor as they look to go further than they’ve been able to get in 20 years.
Reasonable worst case scenario — It’s hard to even talk yourself into a disaster. Maybe the goalie who always gets hurt (Frederik Andersen) gets hurt and the monotony of a long bore of a season takes its toll. It seems unlikely that the finely tuned machine Rod Brind’Amour has built will tune him out, but sometimes a staleness can infiltrate. It isn’t increasingly reasonable, but a key injury or two can take the wind out of any team’s sails and the presence of Sebastien Aho might be as close to irreplaceable as any singular non-goalie player among the contending teams.
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Carolina has built a great team, but one only getting to the verge of playoff glory. It’s difficult to win at that time of year, but it hasn’t not been very challenging for the Hurricanes to roll through the regular season with the talent that they have assembled. It doesn’t look like 2025-26 will be any different in that regard.