RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) — The Carolina Hurricanes know full well the task ahead of them: To have a chance to lift the Stanley Cup, they’ll have to first beat the defending champions.

The quest begins at 8 p.m. Tuesday when the Hurricanes host the Florida Panthers in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals.

They find themselves in a familiar spot. In 2023, the teams met in the same spot, with the Panthers sweeping Carolina out of the playoffs.

The 4-0 shutout belied how thin the margins were. Florida won all four games by one goal, including a four-overtime thriller that went down as the sixth-longest game in NHL history.

“This is a whole new beast this time around,” said Panthers forward Matthew Tkachuk, who had the four-OT winner in Raleigh and followed with another OT winner two nights later.

This opener comes 48 hours after Florida routed Toronto 6-1 in Sunday’s Game 7 to advance. The Panthers flew to Carolina on Monday, not interrupting their usual postgame routine of staying in the road city after a game to rest, hydrate, and start recovering.

“If anything, we know there’s a tremendous amount of work left that certainly doesn’t get easier against a team like Carolina,” Florida forward Sam Reinhart said. “We’ve seen them year-in, year-out, and we’ve had a series against them that was as tight as any, checking and the style of play. We’ll get back, ready, recover, and get ready to go on Tuesday.”

The Hurricanes have been off since closing out the conference’s top-seeded Washington Capitals in just five games Thursday. That pushed them to the Eastern final for the second time in three seasons and the third time in the current seven-year run of postseason appearances since Rod Brind’Amour’s arrival as coach.

Yet this has been the Hurricanes’ roadblock. Carolina hasn’t won a conference final game since Brind’Amour captained the franchise’s lone Cup winner in 2006, being swept in 2009, 2019, and then two years ago – a run of 12 straight losses, eight coming with the current core of roster mainstays.

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“Two years ago, it didn’t feel good obviously at the time,” Carolina captain Jordan Staal said. “Whenever you have tough losses when you feel good about where you’re headed, they always stick out in your mind.”

Carolina’s Frederik Andersen has been elite in the net. He leads all goalies with multiple postseason starts in goals-against average (1.36) and save percentage (.937). Florida’s Sergei Bobrovsky, meanwhile, befuddled Carolina in the 2023 series and enters with a 2.31 GAA and .901 save percentage.

This is a matchup of the postseason’s two best penalty kills.

The Hurricanes are No. 1 by going 28 of 30 (.933) through two rounds, allowing just 33 shots on goal while tallying a short-handed score. The Panthers are No. 2 at 34 of 38 (.895).

That could mean a rough fight for the power plays in this series. Carolina is 9 of 32 (28.1%) for fourth in the postseason, while Florida is 10th at 8 of 39 (20.5%).

The Hurricanes didn’t have physical forward Andrei Svechnikov for the 2023 meeting because of a season-ending knee injury. The 25-year-old No. 2 overall draft pick in 2018 is thriving with his best postseason so far.

The 6-foot-3, 199-pound Svechnikov is second to Dallas’ Mikko Rantanen with eight playoff goals, including the winner in last week’s clincher against Washington. He’s also avoided a past tendency for taking inopportune penalties; he’s been to the box once through two rounds.

“The effort’s always been there,” Brind’Amour said. “What you’re seeing out of him through these two rounds anyway is he’s impactful even when he’s not on the scoresheet. You just kind of notice him.”

The Associated Press contributed.

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