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The Carolina Hurricanes lost to the Florida Panthers 5-3 in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Final. That ended Carolina's run in the Stanley Cup Playoffs short of the Stanley Cup Final for the seventh straight year. Sebastian Aho scored twice in the first period to give the Hurricanes the lead, but they could not hold on. Aho spoke with Sean Gentile of The Athletic about the series and losing on home ice on Wednesday.
“To me, you either win or lose (a) series,” Aho said. “What’s it matter? If you lose in four or seven or whatever, you lose the series, right?”
The Hurricanes' forward continues, “And obviously, that’s a great hockey team. I mean, one team has beat them the past three seasons, right? So we knew it was going to be a big task to try to beat them. And we truly believe that we have what it takes, but obviously fell short yet again. So, yeah. Pissed. Really pissed off.”
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The Hurricanes started the Eastern Conference Final by losing the first three games of the series. This core has made it this far twice, in 2019 and 2023. Both of those series ended in sweeps. Add in a 2009 sweep at the hands of the Penguins, it was a 15-game losing streak in the East Final for Carolina. Even though they finally won a game in Game 4, it was a swift victory for Florida.
The Hurricanes took that 2-0 lead into the first intermission, but it did not last too long. Florida scored twice within eight minutes to start the second and potted another late in the period to take a 3-2 lead into the second intermission. Seth Jarvis tied it, but Aleksander Barkov made the play of the game on Carter Verhaeghe's game-winning goal. The Hurricanes have problems to fix while the Panthers play in the Stanley Cup Final again.
