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On Wednesday night, the Florida Panthers defeated the Carolina Hurricanes to complete a four-game sweep in the Eastern Conference Final. All of the attention is on the Panthers and their remarkable run to the Stanley Cup Final, and rightfully so. That said, it's also important to consider the Hurricanes' side of this outcome.
If one didn't watch this series, one would assume that Florida dominated Carolina solely based on the fact that it was a sweep. However, that couldn't be further from the truth. This series was as close as a sweep possibly could be, and the Hurricanes easily could've won any of these games.
Even though Carolina can take pride in how they played, it doesn't change the fact that its season is now over. With this sweep, the Hurricanes have now lost their last 12 Eastern Conference Final games; they were also swept by the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2009 and the Boston Bruins in 2019. Now the Hurricanes enter another offseason wondering how they can finally get over the playoff hump.
To answer those questions, they'll have to figure out where things went wrong for them in this series. With that said, here are three reasons why the Hurricanes lost to the Panthers.
3. Injuries caught up with them
This one isn't really something you can blame the Hurricanes for, but it definitely contributed to their downfall. The team already had some massive injuries coming into the series, with forwards Andrei Svechnikov and Max Paciorretty out for the season. Then in Game 4, it only got worse.
Less than two minutes into the game, defenseman Jaccob Slavin took a massive hit from Florida forward Sam Bennett that left him stumbling and knocked him out for the rest of the game. Not long after, forward Stefan Noesen left the game with an injury and didn't return. Forward Martin Necas was also shaken up, although he would return not long after. And that's all in Game 4, not even getting into any injuries that may have happened earlier in the series.
The Hurricanes' depth has been their greatest strength in this contention window. They don't have any true stars, but make up for it by confidently rolling four lines and three defensive pairings. That said, even a team as deep as Carolina has its limits, and the injuries were just too much to overcome this time.
2. High quantity, low quality of shots
This series is a prime example of why shots don't always translate to good scoring chances. The Hurricanes outshot the Panthers 174-127 across the entire series, which may lead some to believe they dominated. However, the scoring chances tell a different story.
Yes, Carolina had more scoring chances than Florida, but not drastically so. Per Natural Stat Trick, the Hurricanes had 122 scoring chances in the series to the Panthers' 106. And on those scoring chances, the Panthers actually outscored the Hurricanes with five goals to their four.
To be fair, those scoring chances do indicate that Carolina played well for the most part. However, the Hurricanes had to take advantage of those chances and failed to do so. It's a harsh reality, but it's the one they're living in after the series.
1. Couldn't beat Sergei Bobrovsky
This point goes hand-in-hand with the previous one, but it's just a different way of looking at it. Bobrovsky has been playing out of his mind these playoffs, saving an unbelievable 19.7 goals above expected. He led the Panthers' comeback against the Bruins, stonewalled the Toronto Maple Leafs, and now frustrated the Hurricanes to no end.
Bobrovsky had the best playoff series of his career against Carolina, saving 168 of 174 shots for a .966 save percentage. He even had a stretch of over 200 minutes where he only allowed one goal on over 100 shots, spanning from the third period of Game 1 to the first period of Game 4. Even when the Hurricanes managed to break through the Panthers' defense, Bobrovsky just said no.
It was easy to see that the Hurricanes were getting extremely frustrated at Bobrovsky's heroics. There were points where they were just throwing everything at the net hoping something would slip through rather than try to set up better scoring chances. They also took some very undisciplined penalties as the frustration boiled over, mostly in the two games in Florida.
Running into a hot goalie is always frustrating, especially when the Hurricanes experienced much of the same story in their previous two playoff exits. However, their inability to break through Bobrovsky's brick wall was still undeniably the biggest reason why they lost this series.
