Lapsed fan’s guide to the 2024 Stanley Cup Final: Everything you need to know about Panthers-Oilers
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Greg Wyshynski, ESPN
After nearly two months of Stanley Cup playoffs, we are down to two teams left. The Florida Panthers and Edmonton Oilers begin the final series of the season on Saturday (8 p.m. ET, ABC/ESPN+), with the ultimate prize in hockey on the line.
As a service to those fans who haven’t been following every shot, save and overtime thriller of the 2024 NHL postseason, here is the lapsed fan’s guide to the Stanley Cup Final — a quick primer on the conference champs, how they got here and what to look out for in the series.
Wait a second … Florida Panthers vs. Edmonton Oilers? Wasn’t this the New York Rangers‘ year?
It sure seemed like the Rangers were a team of destiny. It was the 30th anniversary of their last Stanley Cup win in 1994. They rolled through the first two rounds of the playoffs with overtime heroics. Rempe-mania was running wild! As coach Peter Laviolette admitted, from the players to the rest of the organization, “We truly believed we were going to win the Stanley Cup.”
Alas, the Rangers ran into a Panthers team in the Eastern Conference finals that smothered them defensively and drained their potent power play.
They ended up as the latest example of the Presidents’ Trophy curse: Since 1985, only eight teams that finished with the NHL’s best regular-season record went on to win the Stanley Cup. Since the NHL went to the wild-card format in 2013, no Presidents’ Trophy-winning team has reached the Stanley Cup Final.
According to maps, Edmonton, Alberta, and Sunrise, Florida, seem very far away.
Your geography is correct. According to the NHL, the Oilers and Panthers are 2,541 miles apart, the largest distance between two teams in a Stanley Cup Final. The previous record was set during the 2011 Final between the Vancouver Canucks and Boston Bruins at 2,500 miles apart.
There’s going to be a lot of time on the plane for both teams. Edmonton is a bit more used to that than Florida at this point in the postseason.
Said Edmonton’s Corey Perry of the flight to South Florida: “It was a ton of fun. I watched my show, I fell asleep, got up, watched the shows and we landed. Had a few meals in between.”
The Panthers’ plane has a card table that draws some intense games among the players. The Oilers’ plane also has a card table, but the most intense games are on the Nintendo Switch and specifically Mario Kart. Goalie Stuart Skinner revealed that he plays as Toad.
But the distance isn’t the only stark difference between the two franchise. There’s also the rats and the steaks.
Rats and steaks?
Since 1995, it’s been a tradition at Panthers home games for fans to throw plastic rats on the ice in celebration. It stems from a legendary moment when forward Scott Mellanby used his stick to exterminate a rat in the locker room before the team’s home opener that year and then used the same stick to score two goals in the game — scoring what his teammates called “a rat trick.” Florida would go on to play for the Stanley Cup that season, with fans tossing plastic rats on the ice, and the tradition has endured for decades.
In Edmonton, the beef is back. During the Oilers’ 2006 run to the Stanley Cup Final, a local DJ encouraged fans to throw slabs of meat on the ice as a response to the Detroit Red Wings‘ tradition of hurling octopi on the ice. The Oilers upset the Red Wings in the first round, and the beef tossing continued. Some steaks were seen on the ice in Edmonton during this run to the Final, continuing a juicy tradition.
What’s the big-picture view of Panthers vs. Oilers?
The Panthers are trying to win their first Stanley Cup in franchise history. The Oilers haven’t won one since the end of their dynasty in 1990.
The Panthers are the deeper team on paper, especially on defense and in goal. But they don’t have Connor McDavid or Leon Draisaitl, two generational talents seeking their first championship after several years of frustrating results in the playoffs.
It’s South Florida, which is finally starting to boom as a hockey market after three decades, vs. Canada, as the Oilers attempt to become the first Canadian NHL team to win the Stanley Cup since 1993.
Is Canada rallying around the Oilers to break the drought?
To put the Cup drought into perspective: Canada has seen an NBA champion (Toronto Raptors, 2019) and World Series champion (Toronto Blue Jays, 1993) since the nation last had a Stanley Cup champion.
The Canucks (twice), Oilers, Calgary Flames, Montreal Canadiens and Ottawa Senators all had their shots at breaking the drought and fell short. What we learned from all of those previous attempts: Canadians rooting for a team to win the Cup just because it’s from Canada is a myth. It’s an invention. It’s often talked about but never happens.
Think of it logically: Would a fan of the Flames, the Oilers’ in-province rival, ever want to see Edmonton win anything, especially against a team with ex-Flames star Matthew Tkachuk? Would a Canucks fan whose team lost in seven games to these Oilers suddenly cheer for them? Does anyone in Toronto want anything good to happen for any other Canadian team when the Leafs haven’t won since 1967?
Of course not. It’s silly. There’s only one team Canada rallies around to root for, and it’s the one that competes for gold medals, not the Stanley Cup.
2:04
Greg Wyshynski analyzes Stanley Cup Final betting markets
Greg Wyshynski looks deep into some of the biggest storylines and betting props for the Stanley Cup Final.
The Panthers used to be terrible. How did they become annual Stanley Cup finalists?
Here’s a wild fact: Coach Paul Maurice, the quippy bench boss who also coached the Panthers to the Final for the second time in their history last season, is responsible for half (25) of the franchise’s playoff wins (50). Florida used to be known for not making the playoffs, at one point qualifying only twice in an 18-year span. The Panthers have now made the playoffs in four straight seasons.
Much of the credit goes to GM Bill Zito, who arrived in 2020 and added players like Tkachuk, Sam Bennett, Sam Reinhart and Carter Verhaeghe to the roster. He also hired Maurice, who has guided Florida back to the Final after losing to Vegas in five games last June.
The Panthers are just the sixth team since 1968 to play for the Stanley Cup the season after losing in the Final. The last two that did — the 2009 Penguins and the 1984 Oilers — won it all on their second try. If there’s one big narrative for the Panthers, it’s the unfinished business in trying to win the Stanley Cup for the first time.
What’s different about this version of the Panthers in the Final?
They’re healthier, for sure. Among the injuries Florida had against the Golden Knights: Defenseman Aaron Ekblad had a broken foot and two separated shoulders and Tkachuk broke his sternum before Game 3. But the Panthers are also a different team defensively. They were 21st in goals against per game in 2022-23 (3.32) but rose to first in the NHL (2.41) this season.
They used that defense — and the clutch goaltending of Sergei Bobrovsky — to defeat the rival Tampa Bay Lightning in five games; oust the Bruins in six games, in a rematch of the Panthers’ shocking first-round upset of the B’s last season; and then eliminate the Rangers in six games.
Bobrovsky is seeking his first Stanley Cup in a career that has seen him win the Vezina Trophy twice as the league’s top goalie and eliminate the regular-season’s best team three times in the playoffs. Last season, he carried the Panthers and faced a bunch of shots; this season, the defense has been better and a more rested Bobrovsky has been a solid last line of defense for Florida.
But this season, the key defensive matchup should be Aleksander Barkov, who won the Selke Trophy as the league’s top defensive forward, taking on McDavid.
Weren’t the Oilers basically cooked early in the season?
It certainly appeared that way. Edmonton was 3-9-1 when the Oilers fired head coach Jay Woodcroft and replaced him with Kris Knoblauch, who was coaching the Rangers’ AHL affiliate in Hartford. (Knoblauch was also McDavid’s junior hockey coach, and the Oilers star has denied having any influence on the coaching change.) The Oilers added Hockey Hall of Famer Paul Coffey to Knoblauch’s bench to help coach the defense.
Edmonton then turned its season around, going 46-18-5 under Knoblauch to finish second in the Pacific Division. The Oilers eliminated the Los Angeles Kings for the third straight first round (4-1) and then outlasted the Canucks in a seven-game second-round series that might have been a defining moment for them as a contender — and for their first-year coach.
How did the Vancouver series change the Oilers?
If there was a weak link for Edmonton entering the playoffs, it was goaltending. Stuart Skinner was squarely in the “just don’t lose us a series” territory.
For the first eight games of the playoffs, despite winning five of them, he was a liability: an .877 save percentage, in back of an inconsistent defense. So Knoblauch benched him for Games 4 and 5 against Vancouver in favor of journeyman Calvin Pickard, to give Skinner a reset and to give a wake-up call to the Oilers.
Skinner’s next eight games: six wins and a .919 save percentage, with Edmonton out-defending a very good Dallas Stars team in its six-game Western Conference finals win. Finally, there appeared to be a team playing championship-level hockey surrounding McDavid.
What’s so special about McDavid, anyway?
Sometimes it’s better to show than tell:
0:42
Connor McDavid’s power-play goal opens the scoring in Game 6
Connor McDavid makes a brilliant move and backhands the puck into the net to give the Oilers a 1-0 lead.
That’s McDavid against the Stars in Game 6 of the conference finals, posterizing two defenders before beating goalie Jake Oettinger. It was less than five minutes into the biggest game of McDavid’s career, with a trip to the Cup Final on the line. For anyone else, this is a career-defining highlight. For McDavid, it’s simply known as “Connor doing Connor things.”
McDavid leads all playoff scorers with 31 points in 18 playoff games. That includes 26 assists, putting him five helpers away from Wayne Gretzky’s NHL record for most assists in a single postseason (31 assists in 1988). McDavid has scored in 14 games, with nine multipoint games.
He has collected a lot of hardware during his nine-year NHL career — five scoring titles, three MVP awards — but this is his first chance to play for the Stanley Cup. And he might finally have the right team around him to win it.
What do the Oilers have beyond McDavid?
Leon Draisaitl is every bit the generational talent and franchise pillar that McDavid is. He has 28 points in 18 games, including 10 goals. There were times when it was Draisaitl who stepped up in both ends of the rink to lead the Oilers to victory during the playoffs. As magical as McDavid is, the Oilers aren’t here without Draisaitl.
Neither of the two has the goal total of Zach Hyman, although McDavid and Draisaitl have certainly contributed to it. Hyman leads the playoffs with 14 goals, after scoring 54 goals in the regular season. That puts him in range to threaten the NHL record of 19 goals in a single postseason, currently shared by Reggie Leach and Jari Kurri, the latter of whom set it as an Oiler. Speaking of range, 10 of Hyman’s goals have come from right in front of the net.
If there’s one player who leveled up to star status in the playoffs, it’s Edmonton defenseman Evan Bouchard. He’s third in the playoffs in scoring (27 points) while skating 24:33 per game alongside defensive partner Mattias Ekholm.
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins has 20 points in 18 games, and is notable for being the longest-serving current Oiler — 881 games, spanning nine head coaches, a few general managers and plenty of dashed hopes.
All of these players share something in common: They help run one of the most dominant power-play units in NHL history.
How good is the Edmonton power play?
The Oilers convert on over 37% of their power plays, easily the best in the NHL. McDavid acts like a point guard, distributing pucks. Draisaitl, who’s tied with McDavid with 14 power-play points, is great on one-timers. Bouchard has a booming shot from the point, and Hyman cleans up pucks in front. Knoblauch calls Nugent-Hopkins “the facilitator,” which makes this sound like a heist crew.
While the best advice in slowing the Oilers’ power play is to just not allow them to have one, the Panthers are the second-best penalty-killing team in the playoffs (88.2%), coming off a series in which they thwarted 14 of 15 power plays for the Rangers, who were also one of the NHL’s best teams with the man advantage.
Incidentally, the best penalty-killing team in the playoffs? The Oilers, at 93.9%.
What’s the key to victory for both teams?
For the Panthers, it’s to take away the time and space for McDavid and Draisaitl to operate, while not allowing them chances to score on the power play. It’s a recipe that worked against the Rangers in the conference finals, to the point where New York’s best offensive players said they were playing more conservatively out of fear of making a mistake against Florida. Then, if that fails, relying on Bobrovsky to be the last line of defense.
For the Oilers, it’s just the opposite: If they’re on the road to victory, McDavid and Draisaitl are driving the bus. Yes, they’ll need Skinner to stay strong and require contributions from other players, but at the end of the day the Stanley Cup will be won or lost on the performance of their two stars.
Whether it’s the Panthers as a franchise or McDavid and Draisaitl as generational stars, someone’s earning their first sip from the Stanley Cup this month. And that makes for a very exciting series.
1:09
Trivia: Think you know the Stanley Cup?
Before the Panthers’ matchup vs. the Oilers for the Stanley Cup, test your knowledge with some trivia.
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Bill Connelly
In 93 days, it all starts again. From Week 0’s Irish Farmageddon (Iowa State vs. Kansas State in Dublin) in mid-August to the national title game in late January, the 2025 college football season looms. And with transfer portal movement finally slowing down — including spring moves, FBS teams have averaged more than 19 transfers this offseason, up more than 40% from last season — we can finally take a semi-confident look at what’s in store this fall. That means updating our numbers.
Below are updated SP+ projections for the coming season. A quick reminder: Preseason projections are based on three factors.
1. Returning production. The returning production numbers are based on rosters I have updated as much as humanly possible to account for transfers and attrition. The combination of last year’s SP+ ratings and adjustments based on returning production makes up about two-thirds of the projections formula.
2. Recent recruiting. This piece informs us of the caliber of a team’s potential replacements (and/or new stars) in the lineup. It is determined by the past few years of recruiting rankings in diminishing order (meaning the most recent class carries the most weight). This is also impacted by the recruiting rankings of incoming transfers, an acknowledgment that the art of roster management is now heavily dictated by the transfer portal.
3. Recent history. Using a sliver of information from the previous four seasons or so gives us a good measure of overall program health.
(One other reminder: SP+ is a tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency. It is a predictive measure of the most sustainable and predictable aspects of football, not a résumé ranking, and along those lines, these projections aren’t intended to be a guess at what the AP Top 25 will look like at the end of the season. These are simply early offseason power rankings based on the information we have been able to gather.)
Here are the updated rankings:
This time around, I am also experimenting with what you might call a fourth projection factor: coaching changes. Using data discussed in this March column, I have incorporated some adjustments based on who changed head coaches and/or offensive or defensive coordinators and how those teams performed against historic norms last year. Translation: For teams or units that underachieved significantly against their 20-year averages and changed coaches or coordinators (example: Oklahoma’s offense, Purdue’s entire team), that means a slight bump upward. For teams or units that overachieved and lost their coaches or coordinators (example: UNLV as a team or Louisiana Tech’s defense), that means a bump down.
The adjustments aren’t enormous, but when you see that Oklahoma’s projected rating has risen since February, that explains it.
Minimal changes near the top
Thirteen teams moved up or down at least 10 spots compared to February’s rankings, due to either transfer portal addition/attrition, the coaching adjustments mentioned above, or simply me getting a much better read on returning production after official roster releases. At the very top, however, not a ton changed. The top four teams from February continue to occupy the same spots, though Texas hopped Notre Dame and Oregon into the No. 5 hole. Clemson and Michigan rose a bit, Tennessee dropped five spots after Nico Iamaleava’s transfer, and Oklahoma eased into the top 15. (With their ridiculous schedule, however, the Sooners’ projected win total still isn’t great.)
The overall conference hierarchy hasn’t changed much either, though with the Sun Belt getting hit particularly hard by spring transfer attrition, the AAC moves into the top spot among Group of 5 conferences.
Average SP+ rating by conference
1. SEC (15.3 overall, 33.1 offense, 17.8 defense, 60.7% average returning production)
Top three teams: No. 2 Alabama, No. 4 Georgia, No. 5 Texas
2. Big Ten (9.5 overall, 29.1 offense, 19.6 defense, 56.7% average returning production)
Top three teams: No. 1 Ohio State, No. 3 Penn State, No. 7 Oregon
Both the SEC and Big Ten boast three of the projected top seven teams, but if we measure conferences by average ratings, the SEC still has a commanding lead due, as always, to the lack of dead weight. Only two of 16 SEC teams are projected lower than 43rd overall, while the Big Ten has six such teams, including three ranked 70th or worse. That helps explain why, despite playing only eight-game conference schedules, SEC teams occupy 13 of the top 15 spots in the strength of schedule rankings.
3. Big 12 (6.3 overall, 31.0 offense, 24.7 defense, 61.8% average returning production)
Top three teams: No. 18 Kansas State, No. 22 Arizona State, No. 26 Texas Tech
4. ACC (5.0 overall, 30.8 offense, 25.8 defense, 59.2% average returning production)
Top three teams: No. 8 Clemson, No. 12 Miami, No. 20 SMU
We see a similar dynamic with the Big 12 and ACC — in terms of the quality of its top teams, the ACC (three top-20 teams) seems to have an advantage over the Big 12 (one top-20 team). But the Big 12 has eight top-35 teams compared to the ACC’s four, and while no Big 12 team is projected lower than 66th, the ACC’s average is dragged down by three teams ranking 79th or lower.
5. AAC (-7.8 overall, 26.0 offense, 33.8 defense, 49.4% average returning production)
Top three teams: No. 48 Tulane, No. 53 Memphis, No. 63 UTSA
6. Sun Belt (-8.1 overall, 24.9 offense, 33.0 defense, 46.3% average returning production)
Top three teams: No. 49 James Madison, No. 74 Louisiana, No. 76 South Alabama
7. Mountain West (-8.6 overall, 23.5 offense, 32.1 defense, 46.5% average returning production)
Top three teams: No. 33 Boise State, No. 75 UNLV, No. 83 San Jose State
Three G5 teams are within one point of each other on average, though again, the distribution varies significantly by conference. The MWC is propped up significantly by Boise State, the best projected G5 team, but its average is dragged down by three teams ranking 119th or worse. The Sun Belt has only one such team. The AAC, meanwhile, has a solid five teams in the top 70 … and four teams projected 120th or worse.
8. Conference USA (-13.0 overall, 20.4 offense, 33.4 defense, 50.7% average returning production)
Top three teams: No. 69 Liberty, No. 85 Western Kentucky, No. 104 Jacksonville State
9. MAC (-13.7 overall, 19.8 offense, 33.5 defense, 41.1% average returning production)
Top three teams: No. 72 Toledo, No. 80 Ohio, No. 91 Buffalo
No conference was hit harder by the portal than the MAC, which has only three teams ranked higher than 94th in the returning production rankings below. That’s going to wreck your averages, though Toledo and Buffalo both escaped too much damage in this regard.
An approximate CFP contenders list
My SP+ strength of schedule ratings are based on a simple question: How would the average top-five team fare against your schedule? Oklahoma’s schedule currently features five of the projected top 11 teams and nine of the top 25, while Notre Dame’s features only two teams projected higher than 30th; SP+ SOS says a top-five team would average a 0.757 win percentage against OU’s schedule (equivalent to 9.1 wins in 12 games) and a 0.894 win percentage against Notre Dame’s (10.7 wins). That’s a pretty big difference.
Schedule strengths obviously vary quite a bit within conferences — not every SEC schedule is Oklahoma’s — but it’s worth acknowledging that when it comes to potential College Football Playoff-worthy résumés, the bar can be set in a different spot based on a team’s conference.
Average strength-of-schedule rating per conference
SEC 0.799 (9.6 wins for a typical top-five team)
Big Ten 0.846 (10.2)
ACC 0.891 (10.7)
Big 12 0.902 (10.8)
AAC 0.956 (11.5)
Sun Belt 0.958 (11.5)
MWC 0.959 (11.5)
CUSA 0.964 (11.6)
MAC 0.965 (11.6)
When it comes to how a top-five team would fare, the average SEC schedule is about one win harder than the average ACC or Big 12 schedule. The Big Ten, with its deadweight teams, is about a half-win harder than those leagues but is still more likely to get lumped in with the SEC than the others in the Power 4.
Long story short: We can confidently say that any 10-2 or better team in the SEC or Big Ten would be a likely playoff contender, just as any 11-1 or better team in the ACC or Big 12 would be. We can therefore create a loose list of likely CFP contenders by looking at the teams most likely to hit those marks.
Odds of an SEC team going 10-2 or better: Alabama 65% (SOS rank: 11th), Texas 61% (12th), Georgia 61% (13th), Ole Miss 38% (23rd), Tennessee 33% (24th), LSU 30% (ninth), Florida 18% (second), Auburn 13% (15th), Oklahoma 9% (first), Missouri 5% (25th)
Odds of a Big Ten team going 10-2 or better: Penn State 82% (SOS rank: 29th), Ohio State 77% (21st), Oregon 73% (32nd), Michigan 62% (38th), Illinois 29% (40th), Nebraska 13% (35th), USC 10% (20th), Indiana 9% (31st)
With a particularly weak nonconference schedule and a particularly good team, Penn State might be in the driver’s seat in terms of playoff qualification, while Ohio State, Oregon, Alabama, Michigan and Georgia are all over 60% likely to finish the regular season with two or fewer losses.
Odds of a Big 12 or ACC team (or Notre Dame) going 11-1 or better: Notre Dame 52% (SOS rank: 44th), Clemson 37% (34th), Miami 23% (36th), Kansas State 17% (57th), BYU 7% (64th), Texas Tech 7% (62nd), SMU 6% (45th), Arizona State 5% (61st)
Odds of a Group of 5 team going 11-1 or better: Boise State 37% (SOS rank: 84th), Liberty 17% (136th), Toledo 11% (133rd), Memphis 8% (121st), James Madison 7% (104th)
Notre Dame starts the season with games against Miami and Texas A&M, and while the rest of the schedule features plenty of solid opponents (five are projected between 30th and 47th), if the Irish are 2-0 out of the gates, they’re staring a second straight CFP appearance in the face.
Updated returning production rankings
With updated SP+ projections come updated returning production figures. A reminder: While returning production doesn’t correlate with pure quality, it does correlate well with improvement and regression, particularly at the extremes.
(Note: The production of incoming transfers is mashed into both the numerator and denominator of the returning production formula — so if you lose your starting quarterback but bring in someone else’s from the portal, your returning yardage is probably somewhere around 50%. The production of transfers from schools below the FBS level get half-credit.)
As was the case in February, Clemson leads the way here. And with the way that talent trickles upward in the transfer portal era, it’s probably not a surprise that nine of the top 10 teams in returning production (and 22 of the top 26) are power-conference teams. The P4 boasts 59.6% returning production overall, while the G5 is at 46.8%. That’s a pretty massive gap, one that isn’t likely to shrink anytime soon.
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Kristen Shilton
Jeff Blashill has been hired as coach of the Chicago Blackhawks, it was announced Thursday.
The veteran bench boss steps in to replace interim coach Anders Sorenson, who was promoted after the Blackhawks fired Luke Richardson early in the 2024-25 season. Sorenson was thought to be a candidate for the permanent role, and Chicago had also shown interest in University of Denver coach David Carle.
The Blackhawks ultimately landed on Blashill to be the 42nd head coach in franchise history. Blashill, 51, most recently spent three seasons as an assistant coach on Jon Cooper’s staff with the Tampa Bay Lightning. He previously replaced Mike Babcock to take on his first NHL head coaching job with the Detroit Red Wings from 2015 to ’22, attempting to guide Detroit through a lengthy rebuilding process.
After reaching the playoffs in his first year with the Red Wings, Blashill’s teams never improved beyond fifth in the division and, after six consecutive seasons outside the playoff field, he was fired following the 2021-22 campaign. He left the Red Wings with a 204-261-72 record.
Blashill now joins another organization deep into a rebuilding process, providing experience that Chicago has been lacking. The Blackhawks have churned through four different first-year NHL head coaches — Jeremy Colliton, Derek King, Richardson and Sorenson — since Joel Quenneville’s departure in 2018, and now they’ve targeted a new voice with a developmental background.
Blashill has worked in the NCAA, USHL and AHL throughout his career. His time spent under Cooper — the NHL’s longest-tenured head coach — is another asset.
“Jeff is an incredibly smart and talented coach who boasts more than 25 years of coaching experience across developmental leagues, the NHL and the world stage,” general manager Kyle Davidson said in a statement. “He’s thrived when in a position to develop young players and has shown he’s capable of blending that into overall team success, a vision and philosophy we share for where we are today and where we see our team in the future. We couldn’t be more excited for what’s to come under Jeff’s direction.”
The Blackhawks haven’t been to the postseason since 2017, but they didn’t begin their retooling in earnest until the 2021-22 season. Davidson has been at the helm of Chicago’s rebuild since October 2021 and remains in the thick of it, as Chicago has finished 31st overall in the league standings the past two seasons. The Blackhawks have focused on growing through the NHL draft, and selected phenom Connor Bedard first overall in 2023.
Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals went about as well as it could have for the Florida Panthers. For the Carolina Hurricanes? Not so much.
Following a 5-2 win, the Panthers carry a 1-0 advantage into Game 2 (8 p.m. ET, TNT) on Thursday night.
Will the Hurricanes punch back before the series heads to South Florida? Which players will be most critical to each team’s success? Here are key players, matchup notes and stats to know from ESPN Research ahead of Game 2.
More: Game 1 recap | Grades
Matchup notes
Florida Panthers at Carolina Hurricanes
Game 2 | 8 p.m. ET | TNT
With the Panthers up 1-0, they are now -250 favorites to win the Eastern Conference finals, while the Hurricanes are +200, per ESPN BET. The Panthers now have the shortest odds to win the Stanley Cup, at +160, while the Canes have the longest, at +500.
The Panthers have scored 38 goals on the road this postseason, tied with the 2022 Avalanche for the most through a team’s first eight road games of a single postseason. They are outscoring opponents 17-4 on the road over their last three road contests. The 17 goals are their most in a three-game span on the road in a single postseason in franchise history
The Game 1 defeat was the Hurricanes’ 13th straight loss in the conference finals, going back to 2009. This extends the longest streak in NHL history for losses in the round before Stanley Cup Final; the next highest was the Toronto Maple Leafs with 10 straight losses between 1954-56.
Aaron Ekblad‘s goal in Game 1 gives the Panthers 12 from their defensemen this postseason. That is four more than any other team, and ties the franchise record for most in a single playoff run (both 2023 and 2024).
With goal No. 7 of the postseason, Sam Bennett became the third Panther to score seven or more goals in consecutive playoff runs, joining Carter Verhaeghe and Sam Reinhart (who both accomplished it in 2023 and 2024).
The Hurricanes’ penalty kill was a strength leading into the conference finals — they allowed two power-play goals on 30 chances. That wasn’t the case in Game 1, as they allowed two goals on three chances.
Sebastian Aho joined an impressive list with his Game 1 goal: He is now tied for the most goals in series-opening games in Whalers/Hurricanes history (with five). The others on the list are Ray Whitney, Andrei Svechnikov and his head coach, Rod Brind’Amour.
Current scoring leaders
GP: 11 | G: 4 | A: 8
GP: 13 | G: 4 | A: 9
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