Home of … the Rays?! Inside the unprecedented transformation of Steinbrenner Field
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Jorge Castillo
TAMPA, Fla. — The most unique transformation of a ballpark in Major League Baseball history launched in earnest Sunday at 5 p.m.
That was when the Tampa Bay Rays, after playing a Grapefruit League game against the New York Yankees as the visiting team, were handed the keys to George M. Steinbrenner Field, which will be the Rays’ residence for the 2025 season. It began an unprecedented four-day mission to make their rival team’s stadium look and feel like their own before Friday’s sold-out season opener against the Colorado Rockies.
The Rays will play their entire 81-game home schedule at Steinbrenner Field this season because in October, Hurricane Milton tore through Tropicana Field, their home across the bay in St. Petersburg since their inaugural season in 1998. Winds that reached 120 mph shredded chunks of the building’s fiberglass roof. The damage was deemed too extensive to repair in time to play baseball in 2025.
Converting Steinbrenner Field — the home of the Yankees every spring, and of their Single-A affiliate Tampa Tarpons, since 1996 — was a massive undertaking. MLB pushed back the Rays’ home opener from Thursday to Friday, giving the organization an extra day to prepare. Still, more than 80 Rays staff members and more than 50 contractors from five companies contributed around the clock. The plan included rebranding the property with more than 3,000 signs, big and small, enough to stretch a mile if laid out end to end.
The Rays were free to repaint, but, in a rare break for the franchise during the upheaval, much painting wasn’t necessary because the Yankees’ navy blue pantone (PMS 289 C) is not far from the Rays’ navy blue (PMS 648 C). There was one thing explicitly off limits during the ballpark makeover: the 600-pound bronze statue of George Steinbrenner, the late Yankees owner, standing on a marble pedestal by the main entrance.
The work covered every nook and cranny, obvious and obscure, from the home clubhouse, which was open to the Rays starting Monday at 4:30 p.m., to the two team stores on the property to the massive “Y-A-N-K-E-E-S” lettering above the right- and left-field stands. There were cranes and scissor lifts and cameras to record a time-lapse video of something that has never been done: a major league team moving out of a stadium after spring training and another one moving into it for the summer.
“We’re not going to get every single pinstripe gone in the next four days and that’s not really the goal,” Rays chief business officer Bill Walsh said Sunday, shortly after the Rays were given the green light to take over the ballpark. “The goal is to have this place feel — when you’re walking around, when you’re sitting in the seating bowl — to feel like this is the home of the Rays.”
Above all, Walsh noted, is making the stadium feel like home for the players.
On Sunday, they played as the road team against the Yankees. On Wednesday, less than 72 hours later, players walked into the home clubhouse for the first time ahead of a team workout. That gave them 48 hours to become acclimated to their new surroundings after calling Port Charlotte, 90 minutes south, home for the previous six weeks. Rays manager Kevin Cash didn’t expect a difficult transition for a team looking forward to the end of the spring training grind.
“I mean, getting out of Port Charlotte,” Cash joked, “they’ll take f—ing anything.”
PLAYING A FULL season in the spring home of a division rival qualifies as less than ideal. Multiple options in the area were considered. Steinbrenner Field was deemed the most major-league-ready choice. A one-year deal between the Rays and Yankees was struck in November giving the Rays full-time use of the stadium and New York more than $15 million in return.
Steinbrenner Field was already undergoing the final phase of a substantial renovation to player and staff facilities with health and wellness upgrades that include a two-story weight room, a kitchen with a dedicated staff and a players’ lounge with an arcade.
The project — which began last offseason with the renovation of the home clubhouse — made the stadium more of a fit for the Rays, beyond its convenient location. More work was required to bring the building up to MLB regular-season standards, including remodeling the visiting clubhouse and improvements to cabling and broadcast infrastructure.
The Tarpons will play their home games at a field next to the stadium that was upgraded with lights and seating for 1,000 people. MLB commissioner Rob Manfred estimated the entire operation would cost $50 million.
“A gentleman from the Yankees said this in one of our first meetings: ‘We may not root for you on the field, but we can root for you to have a field,'” Walsh recalled. “We just appreciate the collaborative spirit that they really put forth here.”
Still, Steinbrenner Field seats just 11,026. The Rays ranked 28th in attendance across the majors last season, but their 16,515 average was still significantly higher than their new home’s capacity. Further complicating the situation, the organization had already renewed their season-ticket base for Tropicana Field in 2025 by September.
Playing in an open-air stadium during a Florida summer will be an issue, too, between the unforgiving heat and constant rain. MLB moved first-pitch times starting in June back from 7:05 p.m. to 7:35 p.m. and gave the Rays more home games before June. Tampa Bay will play 19 of its first 22 games at home and 37 of its first 54 games there.
To prepare for the inevitable elements, director of special projects and field operations Dan Moeller had six of the Rays’ eight full-time groundskeepers work Yankees Grapefruit League home games alongside the Yankees’ crew, while two stayed behind to maintain the team’s 85 acres around Tropicana Field.
Moeller said his crew helped pull out the tarp twice this spring, good practice for when the games matter. Tropicana Field, unsurprisingly, has never housed a tarp. The first one in franchise history will have a Budweiser logo on what is prime advertising real estate.
The work won’t be entirely foreign to Moeller and his grounds crew. They maintain the team’s six natural fields in Port Charlotte. Moeller, who was hired by the franchise in 1997, also previously worked on the team’s five outdoor fields, including Al Lang Stadium, at their former spring training complex in St. Petersburg through 2008.
“I’m not quite sure what to expect,” Moeller said. “But we got the best grounds crew in the major leagues and we’ll deal with whatever’s thrown at us. My guys are up for the task, and they’re excited about it.”
VETERAN SECOND BASEMAN Brandon Lowe considered Sunday’s game against the Yankees at Steinbrenner Field more important than a typical exhibition. For him, it was an opportunity to become more familiar with the ballpark. With ground balls on the playing surface. With the background from the batter’s box.
“I feel like baseball players are very resilient and very good at adapting to changes,” said Lowe, who lives in Tampa and will have his commute to work cut significantly. (His manager isn’t so lucky — Cash, who lives in St. Petersburg, said his will increase from just eight minutes to 25.)
The afternoon served as a reminder that it wasn’t home quite yet. The Rays heard a smattering of cheers, but the loudest ones were for Aaron Judge and the Yankees for a game that ended in a tie and doubled as a dress rehearsal for the organization.
Up in the 29-seat press box, the Rays’ public relations team tried to figure out how it would handle large groups of media during the regular season and potentially beyond, while TV and radio broadcast teams adapted themselves to their new workplace.
One problem they encountered: Broadcasters can’t see the bullpens from the booths. The Rays would have to install new camera feeds.
Ryan Bass, the team’s sideline reporter for Fanduel Sports Network Sun, noted there often might not be enough room for him to sit in the camera wells next to the dugouts during games as he normally does.
“From our perspective, doing TV each and every day, we got to figure out, during the course of the season, what the best method is for making sure we bring Rays baseball to fans,” Bass said before Sunday’s game. “I think from what you see March 28th to what you see April 27th, will be completely different just from being really able to get a feel with so many home games to start the year.”
After the game, Yankees manager Aaron Boone finished packing up his office and left it for Cash.
“I’m getting out of here today,” Boone said with a smile, “so I’ll leave him something.”
For the Rays, the pace was frenetic. Sunday evening, when reached by phone for an interview just 90 minutes after Tampa Bay was given clearance to start the makeover, Walsh kindly asked if he could call back in five minutes.
“Sorry,” he said, “I’m hanging up a sign.”
Around him, the outfield walls were being power-washed for advertisement installations on Monday, sod featuring ads from Yankees sponsors was being cut out and replaced, one of the team stores was being stocked with Rays gear, and, with help from Walsh, signs were going up everywhere.
The next morning, the Yankees packed and moved out of the home clubhouse ahead of a flight to Miami, emptying the room for the next tenants.
As they did so, Yankees reliever Scott Effross asked a clubhouse attendant a question that was on everybody’s minds this spring: What are the Rays going to do with the giant Yankees logo light fixture suspended from the ceiling in the middle of the room?
The answer, revealed Wednesday, was covering it with a Rays-branded box. Nearby, a nonslip, Rays-branded rug concealed tiling leading to the showers with “The Bronx” spelled out on it. Down the hall, Rays logos replaced Yankees logos on training tables and whirlpool tiles. In the press box, photos of former Rays and framed media guide covers were hung.
Outside, beyond the center-field wall, on the facade facing Dale Mabry Highway, a billboard was mounted featuring the organization’s “Rays Up” tagline, to let every car speeding past the ballpark know George M. Steinbrenner Field is the home of the Rays.
At the bottom, however, is a reminder that it is only temporary:
“THANK YOU, YANKEES!”
For the first time, MLB is putting some of the sport’s top geographical battles together in a rivalry weekend that begins Thursday night.
Because the matchups are built around natural location rivalries, some of this week’s series will bring the heat (Juan Soto‘s return to the Bronx for a Mets-Yankees showdown, for starters) while others have significantly less juice (Rockies-Diamondbacks, we’re looking at you).
With that in mind, we took the liberty of putting the rivalry weekend matchups in tiers, from the spiciest showdowns to the biggest stretches — then we identified the true current rivals for every MLB team.
The most heated rivalries
What makes it a rivalry: This is one of those old, intrastate civic rivalries that bubbled in the minors (the Texas League in this case) for decades and grew slowly at the big league level once interleague play began. This one really took off a little more than a decade ago with the Astros joined the Rangers in the AL West. It has a name — the “Silver Boot Series” — and plenty of on-field enmity emerging in recent years. They represent Texas’ two biggest metro areas, both of which stake claim to being the hub of the Lone Star-verse, and compete for the same things: the AL West, the AL pennant and the right to claim Nolan Ryan as their own.
One thing to watch: There have been a lot of high-powered offenses in these rivalry matchups, but this year the pendulum has swung towards run prevention for both teams. The Astros have featured an offense that’s been a little below league average, a level to which the Texas batsmen would love to reach. But both pitching staffs rank in the top 10 by ERA+. Expect tight, low-scoring tussles. — Bradford Doolittle
Each team’s true rivals
Rangers: Astros. To a lesser degree, AL West rivals such as the Angels, Mariners and Athletics
Astros: Rangers — plus the added weight of basically being everyone’s hated rival since the franchise was rocked by scandal a few years back
What makes it a rivalry: The Subway Series, like most matchups on this list, derives from geography. New York City has a rich baseball history, and these are its two baseball franchises. About 10 miles and a 50-minute subway trek with a transfer at Grand Central separate the two ballparks. They’re so close that, in 2003, they played the first game of a doubleheader at Yankee Stadium and the second at Shea Stadium. But there’s more than geography here. The two clubs have battled for the city’s attention since the Mets debuted in 1962 — with the Yankees almost always boxing out their Queens counterparts. They met in the 2000 World Series when Roger Clemens threw a piece of lumber at Mike Piazza. And, a quarter century later, little brother (the Mets) seem poised to challenge big brother’s standing for years to come after convincing Soto to leave the Bronx behind.
One thing to watch: Soto’s return to the Bronx will be cinema. The right fielder’s relationship with Yankees fans in his one season in the Bronx, particularly with the Bleacher Creatures beyond the right-field wall, became a storyline of its own. They showered Soto with love and he gave it right back. They chanted “Re-sign Soto!” and he played along. Then he didn’t re-sign and all that love went off the RFK Bridge. Soto will undoubtedly receive raucous boos from offended crowds who still can’t believe he chose the Mets over their team. If Soto’s history is any indication, the scorn will fuel him. — Jorge Castillo
Each team’s true rivals
Yankees: Red Sox, Mets
Mets: Braves, Phillies, Yankees
What makes it a rivalry: Mizzou. Not entirely, but the University of Missouri sits right smack between Busch Stadium and Kauffman Stadium. When innumerable high school grads from the state head to Columbia, there they encounter a whole population of baseball fans rooting for the wrong team. Having experienced this directly, I can recall stories of lines being drawn inside of fraternity houses during the 1985 World Series, keeping fans of the combatants separated. And of course there’s that World Series, now 40 years ago, the outcome of which Cardinals fans of a certain age still whine about.
One thing to watch: Both teams are rolling, having rebounded from sub-.500 starts to leap into the playoff chase. In a reversal of the recent fortunes of the franchises, the Royals’ snap-back was expected and it’s the Cardinals’ sudden rise that is the shocker. However you frame it, the Royals and Cardinals will clash with both teams riding sizable waves of momentum. — Doolittle
Each team’s true rivals
Cardinals: Cubs
Royals: Cardinals — and the Yankees for a time in the 1970s
What makes it a rivalry: Separated by 5.5 miles on the L (subway), the Cubs and Sox are natural rivals, divided by the North and South sides of the city. Growing up a fan of one undoubtedly means not being a fan of the other. The rivalry ebbs and flows as both teams are rarely good at the same time though that hasn’t stopped the two fan bases from duking it out — oftentimes in the stands. A home plate collision — and brawl — between catchers A.J Pierzynski and Michael Barret in 2006 only heightened tensions between the clubs.
One thing to watch: Before assuming the Cubs will sweep the lowly White Sox, consider the teams give up nearly the same amount of runs per game. In fact, the South Siders have a better bullpen by the numbers. And perhaps this is the game where Luis Robert Jr rights his season. He has a career .992 OPS against the Cubs including a 1.063 mark at Wrigley Field. Keep an eye on those fights in the stands. There’s usually a couple that go viral. — Jesse Rogers
Each team’s true rivals
Cubs: Cardinals, with the Brewers a close second, then the White Sox
White Sox: Twins, Cubs
These matchups should be fun
What makes it a rivalry: About 250 miles via Interstate 71 separate these in-state rivals, as there’s no love lost between Cleveland and Cincinnati. Cleveland has mostly owned this matchup, winning 76 of the 135 times (.563) they’ve played. In fact, the Reds haven’t won the season series against Cleveland in a decade, last beating them 3 out of 4 in 2014. Terry Francona facing his old team should add some spice to the match-up.
One thing to watch: Francona’s reception from the Guardians faithful will have to wait until next month when the teams square off in Cleveland so this weekend is about the Reds trying to break that decade-long slump against their rivals. They’ll have to contend with Jose Ramirez, who has a career .935 OPS against Cincinnati including 12 of his 45 interleague home runs. — Rogers
Each team’s true rivals
Guardians: Twins
Reds: Cardinals
What makes it a rivalry: “Bay Bridge Series” no longer works now that the A’s have moved out of Oakland and into Sacramento, about 90 miles away. That’s a shame — there used to be some real juice here, highlighted by an encounter in the 1989 World Series, an A’s sweep in a series best remembered for a terrifying earthquake. But the real rivalry here was among the fans. And given how betrayed the people of Oakland feel after watching their baseball team relocate, that element is long gone.
One thing to watch: Matt Chapman represented a better time in A’s history. The organization drafted him in the first round in 2014, then watched him come up and star on teams that made three consecutive playoff appearances from 2018 to 2020. Chapman was traded shortly thereafter, yet another symbol of the frugality that has plagued this franchise for decades. The A’s haven’t done much right since then, but they’ve held Chapman to four hits and zero home runs in 25 at-bats over these last two years. — Alden Gonzalez
Each team’s true rivals
Giants: Dodgers, Athletics
Athletics: Giants, Angels
What makes it a rivalry: Nothing spices up a rivalry quite like a shared interstate highway and media rights drama. The Beltway Series is just two decades old — the Expos crossed the border to become the Nationals in 2005 — and it has lacked much on-field intrigue. Off the field, particularly inside courtrooms, is another matter. A synopsis: Baltimore was the incumbent team in the region before the Nationals existed. To appease the Orioles, who opposed a franchise entering their market, MLB ordered Nationals games to be broadcasted by MASN — the Orioles-owned television network in perpetuity. Soon enough, the franchises disagreed on the rights fees MASN should pay the Nationals. The Orioles took the matter to court in 2014, igniting a legal battle that finally ended in March when MLB dissolved the agreement, allowing for the Nationals to pursue selling its local TV rights on the open market. This is their first meeting since. Drama.
One thing to watch: These two teams feature exciting young cores on slightly different championship contention timelines. Or so that was the expectation. While the Nationals are, as projected, in fourth place in the NL East and en route to not reaching the postseason for the sixth straight season, the Orioles have face-planted out of the gate with World Series aspirations after consecutive postseason appearances. The Orioles can’t stand to sit in last place much longer. All eyes are on whether they can dig themselves out of this hole. — Castillo
Each team’s true rivals
Nationals: Phillies
Orioles: Yankees and Red Sox
What makes it a rivalry: They share a spring training complex in Peoria, Arizona, neither franchise has won a World Series, and they used to make a lot of trades with each other — indeed, the Mariners’ top two relievers, Andres Munoz and Matt Brash, were acquired from the Padres in two separate trades made on the same day in 2020. The Mariners’ largest comeback in franchise history came against the Padres, a 16-13 victory in 2016 after trailing 12-2. But this is hardly a heated rivalry — it really came about only because neither team had a logical opponent back when interleague play began in 1997.
One thing to watch: With both teams battling for first place, it’s been forever since either team won a division title: 2006 for the Padres and 2001 for the Mariners. Both teams also have early MVP candidates to focus on: Fernando Tatis Jr. leads the NL in WAR and Cal Raleigh is among the leaders in the non-Aaron Judge mix in the AL — and has played every game, starting at either catcher or DH. — David Schoenfield
Each team’s true rivals
Padres: Dodgers (arguably the best rivalry in the game right now!)
Mariners: None, really. The Astros would be the most hated among Mariners fans right now, but you can say that about every team in the AL West.
Well, the geography does line up …
What makes it a rivalry: Back in 2011, the Dodgers were navigating Frank McCourt’s financial mess and Angels owner Arte Moreno saw an opportunity. He signed Albert Pujols and inked a lucrative cable deal that came with the hopes of supplanting the Dodgers as the “it” team in Southern California. The opposite occurred. Guggenheim purchased the Dodgers in spring 2012, then signed an even bigger cable deal, hired Andrew Friedman to lead baseball operations, and the franchise eventually became the industry’s standard-bearer. The Angels, meanwhile, are trending toward a 10th consecutive losing season and saw Shohei Ohtani spurn them for the Dodgers two offseasons ago. Moreno and his lieutenants despise the Dodgers, but the gap between the two teams has become so wide — in track record, financials, resources and reputation — that it doesn’t matter.
One thing to watch: Clayton Kershaw makes his return from offseason toe and knee surgeries Saturday, and the Dodgers need him far more than they ever anticipated. Tyler Glasnow, Blake Snell and Roki Sasaki are all on the injured list with shoulder injuries. Ohtani, meanwhile, is still methodically going through his pitching rehab and isn’t expected back until some time after the All-Star break. Kershaw is in his age-37 season, but he has looked sharp through five rehab starts, posting a 2.57 ERA in 21 innings. — Gonzalez
Each team’s true rivals
Dodgers: Giants, Padres, Diamondbacks, Braves, Astros, Yankees
Angels: Rangers, Mariners, Astros
What makes it a rivalry: Let’s be honest here, this isn’t even the best rivalry between Tampa and Miami. The NHL version between the Lightning and Panthers is much more intense and competitive, with both franchises having won Stanley Cups this decade (the Lightning in 2020 and 2021 and the Panthers in 2024). The Rays have dominated the head-to-head play of late, going 24-4 since 2019.
One thing to watch: The Rays have to view this as a chance to jump-start their season given their recent dominance over the Marlins. Chandler Simpson is fun to watch with his blazing speed but hasn’t really been all that valuable for the Rays. For the Marlins, they need Sandy Alcantara to get going, but the former Cy Young winner has struggled in his return from Tommy John surgery. He should start on Sunday. — Schoenfield
Each team’s true rivals
Rays: Yankees (although obviously the Rays aren’t the Yankees’ biggest rival)
Marlins: Braves. As Marlins fans can point out, they do have more World Series titles than the Braves since 1997
What makes it a rivalry: If playing in the same state isn’t enough to define a rivalry, then how about playing in more than 2,300 games against each other to do it? From 1969 to 1994, the Phillies and Pirates were both in the NL East, giving each city ample time to dislike the other side, each and every year. Though the Phillies have been the better team recently, it’s the Pirates who own a decided edge in the all-time series, winning 1230 games to 1085 for Philadelphia. Pirate favorite Andrew McCutchen went to the other side for three seasons before returning to earn boos from the Philly faithful who used to cheer him.
One thing to watch: When it comes to the Pirates these days, there’s literally one thing to watch: Paul Skenes. This will be his first time facing Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber and a Phillies offense that ranks in the top 10 in OPS. Skenes is coming off one of his better outings in a loss to the Mets on Monday — though he only struck out six in six innings. In fact, Skenes hasn’t hit double digits in strikeouts in a single outing this season. That trend might continue this weekend, as the Phillies are one of the tougher teams to whiff this season. — Rogers
Each team’s true rivals:
Phillies: Mets (with the Braves gaining ground)
Pirates: The Phillies — but the Cubs aren’t far behind
What makes it a rivalry: “The Border Battle” — the uninspired moniker for this rivalry — is almost entirely a product of geographic overlap. As best I can tell, insofar as there is bad blood between Milwaukee/Wisconsin and Minneapolis/Minnesota, it’s as much a carryover from the Packers-Vikings rivalry in the NFL as anything. And of course the Wisconsin-Minnesota college football rivalry is the most played of all the traditional rivalries. In baseball, the Twins and Brewers were briefly in the same division and were both in the AL for a long time. But other than claiming rights to Larry Hisle and Paul Molitor, it’s always struck me as too friendly. Midwest nice.
One thing to watch: The Brewers have yet to get hot this season for any prolonged stretch, though they did recover from their wretched season-opening series at Yankee Stadium; Milwaukee has hovered around .500 all season. That’s where Minnesota is as well but they got there in different ways. The Twins started slow and have gotten red hot lately. Their problem is that all the non-White Sox teams in the Central have been hot, so Minnesota has hardly gained any ground in the standings. When this series begins, both rivals are still establishing whatever their 2025 identities turn out to be. — Doolittle
Each team’s true rivals
Brewers: Cubs, Cardinals
Twins: Royals, White Sox, Twins
What are we doing here?!
What makes it a rivalry: Once upon a time, this was a heated AL East affair. That changed when the Tigers moved to the AL Central in 1998. Still, just a four-hour, 230-mile/370-kilometer drive separates the two cities and, with the Expos long gone, the Blue Jays don’t have a Canadian sibling franchise to loathe. Maybe the recent tense U.S.-Canada relations will make for a zestier-than-usual weekend in Toronto.
One thing to watch: The Tigers are proving their stunning finish to the 2024 season was no fluke. They own the best record in the American League behind a starting rotation headed by reigning AL Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal. The good news for Toronto is they won’t face Skubal this weekend as they seek to remain within striking distance in the AL East. The bad news is Chris Bassitt and Kevin Gausman, two of their three best starters, won’t toe the rubber either. — Castillo
Each team’s true rivals
Blue Jays: Expos
Tigers: White Sox
What makes it a rivalry: This is always a fun series for history buffs since the Braves and Red Sox are both “Original 16” franchises, but they’ve never met in a World Series and this rivalry is really just based on the fact that the Braves played in Boston from 1876 to 1952. That doesn’t have much relevance for 2025. Seven Hall of Famers have played for both franchises: Babe Ruth, Cy Young, Jimmy Collins, Al Simmons, Orlando Cepeda, John Smoltz and Billy Wagner.
One thing to watch: We get a stellar pitching matchup on Friday between 2024 Cy Young winner Chris Sale for the Braves and 2025 Cy Young contender Garrett Crochet for the Red Sox. Sale is 1-3 with a 3.97 ERA, but has fanned 64 in 47⅔ innings. Crochet is 4-2 with a 1.93 ERA and 65 Ks in 56 innings. — Schoenfield
Each team’s true rivals
Braves: Probably still the Mets, but Braves-Phillies has escalated since 2022
Red Sox: Yankees
What makes it a rivalry: They’re … both kinda new? (The Rockies were born in 1993, the Diamondbacks in ’98.) They’re … kinda close? (It’s a two-hour flight or a 13-hour drive between their respective cities.) They … like the color purple? (The D-backs recently brought theirs back.) OK, we’re getting a little too cute. It’s not like there’s nothing here. They play in the same division, and they really got after it twice: 2007, when the D-backs won the NL West and the Rockies swept them in the NLCS; and 2017, when they met in the wild-card game. But there hasn’t been much since.
One thing to watch: Corbin Carroll slashed .299/.426/.529 in 25 games against the Rockies from 2023 to 2024, a two-year stretch in which they lost a combined 204 games. Carroll is off to a blazing start, and now he’ll get to feast on a Rockies pitching staff that holds the worst ERA in the majors. The D-backs have won 19 of 26 games against the Rockies over these past two years. That should come as no surprise. — Gonzalez
Each team’s true rivals
Diamondbacks: Dodgers, Padres
Rockies: Dodgers
WASHINGTON — Andrei Svechnikov scored the go-ahead goal with just under two minutes left and the Carolina Hurricanes beat the Washington Capitals 3-1 in Game 5 on Thursday night, winning the second-round series and advancing to the Eastern Conference finals for a second time in three years.
Captain Jordan Staal scored his first goal of the playoffs, and Frederik Andersen stopped 18 of the 19 shots he faced, including several on Alex Ovechkin.
After a give-and-go with defenseman Sean Walker, Svechnikov’s shot got through Logan Thompson from a bad angle with 1:59 remaining, and that was the difference in a back-and-forth game.
Seth Jarvis sealed it with an empty-net goal with 26.1 seconds left.
The Hurricanes improved to 10-5 in potential closeout games in seven trips to the postseason with coach Rod Brind’Amour. They will face either the Florida Panthers in a rematch of the 2023 East finals or the Toronto Maple Leafs in a reminder of 2002. The Panthers are up 3-2 in their series with the chance to eliminate the Maple Leafs as soon as Friday night.
Carolina is 35-7-2 through 82 games and then two rounds when scoring first.
Despite an unassisted goal by Anthony Beauvillier and some important saves among the 18 from Thompson, the Capitals saw their season end after finishing atop the conference and the Metropolitan Division, and beating the Montreal Canadiens in the first round to win a playoff series for the first time since their Stanley Cup run in 2018. Washington started strong, got a few quality scoring chances but could not get through tight-checking defense to prolong the series.
After giving up the backbreaker to Svechnikov, Thompson was pulled for an extra attacker and the Capitals were unable to equalize and let Jarvis get to the loose puck for his empty-netter.
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