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Raleigh, N.C. — Carter Verhaeghe and Aaron Ekblad scored two tone-setting first-period goals while Sergei Bobrovsky remained strong in net as the reigning Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers beat the Carolina Hurricanes 5-2 in Tuesday night’s opener of their Eastern Conference final series.
A.J. Greer added a goal by finishing off a perfect 2-on-1 transition chance in the second period for Florida, while Sam Bennett added a third-period score that erased any lingering doubt – only to see Eetu Luostarinen added another one late to make it 5-1 and keep pouring it on.
Bobrovsky held up with 31 saves, including during a stretch in which the Panthers failed to get a shot on goal for more than 15 minutes spanning the second intermission. It came 48 hours after the Panthers had beaten Toronto in a road Game 7 to advance and set up a rematch of the Eastern final from two years ago.
Florida swept that one with four one-goal margins, including Game 1 in four overtimes. And just as before, the Panthers have immediately ripped home-ice advantage from a team that was 5-0 at home in these playoffs.
Sebastian Aho tallied Carolina’s lone score when the outcome was in doubt, with Seth Jarvis’ pass banging off Aho’s right skate to slide under Bobrovsky in the dying seconds of the first to make it 2-1. But Florida got Greer’s finish off a backhand feed from Niko Mikkola to beat Frederik Andersen to push the margin back to two goals early in the second.
Andersen had been elite in the postseason, but found himself alone with Verhaeghe at the edge of the crease for a quick power-play goal that beat him to the upper right corner. He was later shielded by Brad Marchand on Bennett’s score, which fittingly ended the 15-minute stretch without a shot on goal.
Those both came with the man advantage, a glaring stat against Carolina’s penalty kill that had been the postseason’s best by allowing two goals through two rounds.
Jackson Blake scored a late goal for Carolina in a finish that included Marchand being tossed for a game-misconduct penalty – including being escorted off by an official while shouting back toward center ice – after a fight with Carolina’s Shayne Gostisbehere.
The loss marked Carolina’s 13th straight in a conference final, going back being swept in 2009, 2019 and 2023.
Game 2 is back at Carolina on Thursday night.
Kasper drives Austria’s historic run
Austria, led by Detroit Red Wings center Marco Kasper, reached the playoffs for the first time in 31 years at the world hockey championship in Stockholm.
Kasper had two assists, three shots and was plus-2 in Tuesday’s 6-1 win over Latvia to became the fourth and final team to advance to the quarterfinals from Group A.
Kasper is tied for the lead in team scoring with four goals and three assists and is plus-8 in seven games.
Also Tuesday, Red Wings forward Lucas Raymond had an assist with three shots and Red Wings defensemen Simon Edvinson and Erik Gustafsson were scoreless in Sweden’s 5-3 loss against Canada.
Red Wings defenseman Moritz Seider was minus-1 with six shots in Germany’s 2-1 loss to Denmark.
Ex-Wolverine Frank Nazar (Mt. Clemens) had two goals in Team USA’s 5-2 win over the Czech Republic.
The quarterfinals on Thursday will feature: Canada vs. Denmark, the United States vs. Finland, Sweden vs. Czech Republic and Switzerland vs. Austria.
Stars, Oilers meet again in West final
Much is still the same, even though a lot of names have changed for the Dallas Stars and the Edmonton Oilers, meeting in the Western Conference final for the second year in a row.
Coaches Pete DeBoer and Kris Knoblauch are still in charge, so the structures are pretty much unchanged for both teams. Edmonton still has 100-point teammates Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, while Dallas has its core of young scorers like Roope Hintz, Wyatt Johnston and Jason Robertson along with veterans Tyler Seguin and captain Jamie Benn.
“There’s a few different players playing the series obviously. But in a lot of ways, it’s very similar,” McDavid said Tuesday. “Same coach, same systems. … We haven’t changed much, they haven’t changed much.”
The same 26-year-old goalies will be in net when the series starts Wednesday night – Jake Oettinger for the Stars in their third consecutive West final, and Stuart Skinner for the Oilers, though he had lost his starting job in these NHL playoffs.
“There’s lots of things going to be similar,” Draisaitl said. “They know how we want to play, and we know how they want to play.”
Still, both the Stars and Oilers had seven players who appeared in last year’s series – won by Edmonton in six games – that are no longer on those teams.
The biggest change is midseason trade acquisitions Mikko Rantanen and Mikael Granlund now on the Stars’ top line with fellow Finnish player Hintz.
Rantanen is the leading scorer in these NHL playoffs with 19 points (nine goals, 10 assists). He is just ahead of McDavid with 17 points (three goals, 14 assists) and Draisaitl with 16 (five goals, 11 assists), who aren’t alone in scoring now for the Oilers. They are in their third West final in four seasons after losing last year’s Stanley Cup in seven games to Florida.
“They’ve got the two-headed monster, but just the depth like they brought in, (Trent) Frederic, (Corey) Perry, all those guys,” Oettinger said. “They’re first in the league in odd-man rushes, but now they’re also like getting to the net, getting traffic to the net. They’re not just kind of run-and-gun, which you need, the all-around game. From my perspective, I think just going to have to expect it all.”
Defenseman Cody Ceci, another player the Stars got in a midseason trade from San Jose, was with the Oilers the past three seasons. Veteran defenseman John Klingberg has played 10 playoff games after just 11 regular-season games with the Oilers, his fourth team since beginning his NHL career with the Stars from 2015-22.
Playoff scorers
With McDavid, Draisaitl and Rantanen, this series has three of the top scorers in NHL playoff history.
McDavid is third on that list at 1.58 points per game (40 goals, 94 assists in 85 games), with Draisaitl fifth at 1.46 (46, 78 in 85 games). Rantanen, in his first postseason with Dallas after the past seven with Colorado, ranks seventh at 1.28 (43, 77 in 120 games).
The all-time leader is Wayne Gretzky averaging 1.84 points in his 208 playoff games. He won four Stanley Cup titles in a five-season stretch with the Oilers in the 1980s, and this past weekend was in the Stars locker room after they won in the second round.
Between the pipes
Oettinger is already in his fourth consecutive postseason and has won six postseason series. Now he wants his Stanley Cup shot.
“I feel like he is dialed in. I feel like he’s on a bit of a mission here,” DeBoer said. “I think coming up short two years in a row, or getting that far and then not breaking through … he’s going to do everything he can to try to get us there.”
Oettinger has a .919 save percentage and 2.47 goals-against average.
Skinner, the Oilers regular-season starter, was replaced after they fell behind 2-0 in the first round. They won six in a row with Stuart Skinner starting before he sustained an apparent left leg injury in Game 2 against Vegas in the second round.
After a loss in Game 3, Skinner posted consecutive shutouts, including the series-clinching 1-0 overtime win in Game 5.
Special teams
Dallas went 0 for 14 on the power play in the series in last year’s West final. The Oilers added two short-handed goals in the series, which they clinched with two power-play goals in Game 6.
The Stars have been good on special teams this postseason, ranking third among playoff teams both for converting power plays (30.8%) and killing penalties (86.1%). Their power play is the best among any teams that played more than one round, and the teams better on PKs are Eastern Conference finalists Carolina and Florida.
Edmonton is at 25% on power plays and 66.7% on kills this postseason.
Gretzky visited Stars locker room
Wayne Gretzky was in the Dallas Stars locker room congratulating them after they advanced to their third consecutive Western Conference final, where they will face the franchise with which “The Great One” was a four-time Stanley Cup champion.
“He said we’re going up against a pretty good team now,” Stars captain Jamie Benn said Tuesday, the day before hosting Game 1 against Edmonton. “And I had to ask him who he was cheering for. It felt right, and he didn’t answer, obviously.”
Benn said it was “pretty cool” that Gretzky visited the Stars after their 2-1 overtime win Saturday night over Winnipeg that set up a West final rematch against the Oilers.
Edmonton won the West final over the Stars in six games last year, then lost to Florida in a seven-game Stanley Cup Finals.
“What a great honor to have the greatest player of all time come down after the game and say hello,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said.
Gretzky told the Stars he had so much fun watching them play, and that they were now going to play “one of the greatest teams ever.”
DeBoer was on the coaching staff for Canada for the team’s 4 Nations Face-Off title earlier this year, and during that period got to spend some time with Gretzky.
“Extra special. That’s my era. That’s the guy we all grew up watching,” DeBoer said. “He’s a special guy when you get him 1-on-1 or in a coach’s room or behind the scenes. You can see his passion for the game. He can sit and talk hockey and tell stories all night.”
Gretzky was part of four Stanley Cup titles in a five-season span in the 1980s with Edmonton. He was the NHL career-leading goal scorer with 894 goals until Alex Ovechkin passed him on April 6, but still has the most points (2,857) and assists (1,963).
So when meeting the Stars and DeBoer, did Gretzky say anything that would create headlines in Edmonton, like saying he was hoping Dallas would win?
“He didn’t. He would never say that and I would never put him in that spot,” DeBoer said. “He was very respectful of our group and the job we’d done to that point. I think we all understand his allegiance to Edmonton and appreciate that, so he never went beyond that.”
Knight: 2026 Winter Games will be her final Olympics
Hilary Knight is preparing to make the 2026 Milan Winter Games her fifth and final Olympics, the face of U.S. women’s hockey told USA Today on Tuesday.
“It’s time,” Knight was quoted as saying.
“I have grown up in this program and it’s just given me so much. I’m at peace. I just have this feeling that it’s time,” she added. “And I’m grateful that – hopefully I can stay healthy and everything – I can go out when I’d like to be done. That is such a privilege that only a handful of competitors get.”
The decision comes as Knight turns 36 in July, while entering her 20th year with the national team since making her debut in the 2006 Four Nations Cup tournament as a 17-year-old.
Over that time, Knight has become one of her sport’s most decorated and dominant players, including being named the winner of the IIHF’s inaugural female player of the year award in 2023.
Last month, she led the U.S. with nine points in winning her 10th gold medal at the world championships, a tournament in which Knights holds the career record for most goals, assists and points. At the Olympics, Knight won gold at the 2018 Games in South Korea along with three silvers.
And she’s coming off a PWHL season in which the Boston Fleet captain finished tied for the league lead with 29 points (15 goals, 14 assists) in 30 games.
Though she’s retiring from international play, Knight said she intends to continue her PWHL career in a league she played a role in helping launch in the summer of 2023.
The six-team privately funded league surpassed the 1 million attendance mark this past season and last month announced it was adding expansion teams in Seattle and Vancouver for the start of its third season.
Knight’s impact on hockey also included her being at the forefront of the U.S. players’ threat to boycott the 2017 world championships on home soil, successfully achieving their bid for better pay and more equitable treatment from USA Hockey.
“I understood what the sport gave me and I wanted to give that to other people. I wanted other people to have the same opportunities that I had,” Knight said. “Obviously there’s tons of work that always needs to be done, but I think we now have a career path.”
Conference Finals scheduleEastern ConferenceCarolina vs. Florida
(Panthers lead 1-0)
▶ Game 1: Florida 5-2
▶ Game 2: Thursday at Carolina, 8
▶ Game 3: Saturday at Florida, 8
▶ Game 4: Monday, May 26 at Florida, 8
▶ x-Game 5: Wednesday, May 28 at Carolina, TBA
▶ x-Game 6: Friday, May 30 at Florida, TBA
▶ x-Game 7: Sunday, June 1 at Carolina, TBA
Western ConferenceDallas vs. Edmonton
▶ Game 1: Wednesday at Dallas, 8
▶ Game 2: Friday at Dallas, 8
▶ Game 3: Sunday at Edmonton, 3
▶ Game 4: Tuesday, May 27 at Edmonton, 8
▶ x-Game 5: Thursday, May 29 at Dallas, TBA
▶ x-Game 6: Saturday, May 31 at Edmonton, TBA
▶ x-Game 7: Monday, June 2 at Dallas, TBA
x-If necessary
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