{"id":39600,"date":"2025-05-20T06:58:29","date_gmt":"2025-05-20T06:58:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/39600\/"},"modified":"2025-05-20T06:58:29","modified_gmt":"2025-05-20T06:58:29","slug":"reigning-stanley-cup-champion-florida-panthers-carolina-hurricanes-meet-again-in-eastern-final-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/39600\/","title":{"rendered":"Reigning Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers, Carolina Hurricanes meet again in Eastern final"},"content":{"rendered":"

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) \u2014 The Florida Panthers were on their way to becoming the NHL\u2019s standard, headed to the Stanley Cup Final two years ago before returning to win the Cup last year.<\/a><\/p>\n

In many ways, the breakthrough moment came in the exact spot they find themselves now: in the Eastern final, preparing to open a series on the road against the Carolina Hurricanes on Tuesday night. The Panthers swept that series with four one-goal wins, a grinding advance that began with a four-overtime thriller<\/a> that went down as the sixth-longest game in NHL history.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat playoff experience started three years ago and this building was a part of that,\u201d said forward Matthew Tkachuk, who had the four-OT winner in Raleigh and followed with another OT winner two nights later<\/a> followed memorably by leading a beeline for the tunnel to celebrate in the locker room. \u201cWe have that to reflect on and go back on, but this is a whole new beast this time around.\u201d<\/p>\n

This opener comes 48 hours after Florida routed Toronto 6-1 in Sunday\u2019s Game 7<\/a> 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 the recovery process.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf anything, we know there\u2019s a tremendous amount of work left that certainly doesn\u2019t get easier against a team like Carolina,\u201d Florida forward Sam Reinhart said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve seen them year-in, year-out and we\u2019ve had a series against them that was as tight as any, checking and the style of play. We\u2019ll get back, ready, recover and get ready to go on Tuesday.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Hurricanes have been off since c losing out the conference\u2019s top-seeded Washington Capitals in just five games Thursday<\/a>. That pushed them to the Eastern final for the second time in three seasons and third time in the current seven-year run of postseason appearances since Rod Brind\u2019Amour\u2019s arrival as coach.<\/p>\n

Yet this has been the Hurricanes\u2019 roadblock. Carolina hasn\u2019t won a conference final game since Brind\u2019Amour captained the franchise\u2019s lone Cup winner in 2006, being swept in 2009, 2019 and then two years ago \u2014 a run of 12 straight losses, eight coming with the current core of roster mainstays.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo years ago, it didn\u2019t feel good obviously at the time,\u201d Carolina captain Jordan Staal said. \u201cWhenever you have tough losses when you feel good about where you\u2019re headed, they always stick out in your mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

In net<\/p>\n

Carolina\u2019s Frederik Andersen has been elite in net<\/a>. He leads all goalies with multiple postseason starts in goals-against average (1.36) and save percentage (.937). Florida\u2019s Sergei Bobrovsky, meanwhile, befuddled Carolina in the 2023 series and enters with a 2.31 GAA and .901 save percentage.<\/p>\n

Special teams<\/p>\n

This is a matchup of the postseason\u2019s two best penalty kills.<\/p>\n

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

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%).<\/p>\n

Hello, again<\/p>\n

Florida is in the NHL\u2019s final four for the third consecutive season, matching the longest run by any franchise over the past 20 postseasons.<\/p>\n

Dallas has also made the conference finals for a third straight year and will meet Edmonton in a rematch of 2024\u2019s West title series. Tampa Bay went this far in three straight postseason runs from 2020-22, Chicago did it from 2013-15, Los Angeles did it from 2012-14 and Detroit did it from 2007-09.<\/p>\n

Been here before<\/p>\n

Combine the two rosters, and there are 33 players in this series \u2014 17 for Florida, 16 for Carolina \u2014 who have been on the ice for at least one game in the conference finals round before.<\/p>\n

There are five players in the series with at least nine career points in this round of the playoffs, and they all play for Florida. Brad Marchand, Carter Verhaeghe and Matthew Tkachuk all have 10, while Aleksander Barkov and Sam Bennett have nine apiece.<\/p>\n

Continued rise?<\/p>\n

The Hurricanes didn\u2019t 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The 6-foot-3, 199-pound Svechnikov is second to Dallas\u2019 Mikko Rantanen with eight playoff goals, including the winner in last week\u2019s clincher against Washington. He\u2019s also avoided a past tendency for taking inopportune penalties; he\u2019s been to the box once through two rounds.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe effort\u2019s always been there,\u201d Brind\u2019Amour said. \u201cWhat you\u2019re seeing out of him through these two rounds anyway is he\u2019s impactful even when he\u2019s not on the scoresheet. You just kind of notice him.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP Sports Writer Tim Reynolds in Florida contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP NHL playoffs: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/stanley-cup<\/a> and https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nhl<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) \u2014 The Florida Panthers were on their way to becoming the NHL\u2019s standard, headed to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39601,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[463,464],"tags":[91,1742,254,29,246,1280,57,1239,5,1284,94,270,1279,4,292,60,2668,1535,83,252,11,43,14,104,718],"class_list":{"0":"post-39600","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl-playoffs","8":"category-stanley-cup-playoffs","9":"tag-aleksander-barkov","10":"tag-andrei-svechnikov","11":"tag-brad-marchand","12":"tag-carolina-hurricanes","13":"tag-carter-verhaeghe","14":"tag-fl-state-wire","15":"tag-florida-panthers","16":"tag-frederik-andersen","17":"tag-hockey","18":"tag-jordan-staal","19":"tag-matthew-tkachuk","20":"tag-mikko-rantanen","21":"tag-nc-state-wire","22":"tag-nhl","23":"tag-nhl-hockey","24":"tag-nhl-playoffs","25":"tag-north-carolina","26":"tag-rod-brindamour","27":"tag-sam-bennett","28":"tag-sam-reinhart","29":"tag-sergei-bobrovsky","30":"tag-sports","31":"tag-stanley-cup","32":"tag-stanley-cup-playoffs","33":"tag-stanley-cup-playoffs-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/114538866523486099","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39600\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}