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For the first time since 2006, the Carolina Hurricanes have won an Eastern Conference Final game. It took 19 years — and 16 games in the final four — but Rod Brind'Amour's team has finally broken the curse.
The Hurricanes beat the Florida Panthers 3-0 at Amerant Bank Arena on Monday night, riding a Frederik Andersen shutout and a game-winning goal by Logan Stankoven to send the series back to Raleigh for a Game 5.
“We wanted to leave it all out there and play our best game,” Andersen said after recording his second shutout of the postseason, per NHL.com's George Richards. “We were rewarded for it. I love playing with this team, so, happy to be getting another shot [Wednesday]. We were closer to our game, and we’re a pretty good team when we play our game. We need more of that.”
“Right from the start we were good all night,” echoed Brind’Amour. “That’s how we need to play if we’re going to have a chance, and we gave ourselves a chance. Everything was solid tonight. The goalie great when he needed to be, the penalty kill was phenomenal (4-for-4). That was obviously more like it.”
It was the first game of the series where the Hurricanes genuinely looked like they belonged in the same conversation as the Panthers. Carolina was the better team all night, and got rewarded with a timely goal from Stankoven in the middle of the second period.
“The play happened so fast,” Stankoven said of the game winner. “It was a great feed by [Alexander Nikishin] to make that play off the turnover. It all starts with him. … We try to preach about winning a period and go from there. It was nice to get the lead tonight, play on our toes instead of our heels. You can't look too far ahead. We know we've got a long ways to go still.”
Hurricanes have finally broken the curse
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After being swept in back-to-back-to-back Eastern Conference finals — most recently by these same Panthers in 2023 — it looked like Carolina might never win a final four game again.
But the club dug deep on Monday night, outplaying the Panthers and finally snapping the 19-year drought. Although there's still a long way to go, the goal now is just winning one more game on home ice on Wednesday night.
“When you’re down, you lay everything on the line,” Florida forward Sam Bennett said of Carolina's desperation in the contest, per Richards. “You have nothing to lose and they played a good game. We didn’t have our best tonight, but we’re still in a good position.”
The Panthers were playing without a couple of key skaters in Sam Reinhart and Niko Mikkola; both will likely return to the lineup at the Lenovo Center on Wednesday.
It's still going to take a herculean effort for the Hurricanes to advance to the Stanley Cup Final for the first time since 2006 — but they've got the first one. It'll be interesting to see if Brind'Amour's group can send the series back to South Florida with another victory in Game 5.
