The Carolina Hurricanes' season came to an end on Wednesday night, as they were eliminated from the Stanley Cup Playoffs by the Florida Panthers, who won by a 5-3 final score in Game 5.

For the third consecutive season, the Panthers are the last team standing in the Eastern Conference and now hope to make it consecutive Stanley Cup victories, awaiting the winner of the Dallas Stars and Edmonton Oilers in the Western Conference Final.

But for the Hurricanes, it was another disappointing end to another strong regular season that also saw them cruise through the opening two rounds of the postseason against the New Jersey Devils and Washington Capitals.

In doing so, they've made some unfortunate sports history. This season marks the seventh consecutive campaign that the Hurricanes have won at least a single round in the postseason but ultimately fell short of advancing to the championship round; no other team in the major four North American sports leagues has done that in more than five consecutive seasons.

The teams to do so in five straight seasons include the Toronto Maple Leafs, the NBA's Milwaukee Bucks, and the NFL's Buffalo Bills.

The Hurricanes failed to protect their 2-0 lead in Game 5

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The Hurricanes avoided what would have been a fourth consecutive sweep of their team in the Eastern Conference Final when they managed to prolong their campaign with a 3-0 victory over the Panthers in Game 4 on Monday night in Florida.

Things went well for the Hurricanes in the opening 20 minutes of play on Wednesday, as they quickly took a 2-0 lead thanks to a pair of goals from Sebastian Aho. But the Panthers quickly stunned the Hurricanes in the second period with three goals in a span of just under five minutes of time from Matthew Tkachuk, Anton Lundell and Evan Rodrigues, taking a 3-2 lead.

Carolina then knotted the score at 3-3 in the third period as Seth Jarvis capitalized on a Florida turnover, slipping the puck past goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky. But once again, the Panthers had the answer as Carter Verhaeghe netted what proved to be the game-winner at the 12:21 mark. Sam Bennett then sealed the win by hitting the vacated net with goaltender Frederik Andersen on the bench for a sixth attacker.

It'll now be another offseason full of question marks in Raleigh.