Luke DeCock: Have the Hurricanes learned enough from the Panthers to dethrone them?

Luke DeCock, The News & Observer on Oct 8, 2025

Published in Hockey

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RALEIGH, N.C — The Edmonton Oilers, famously, had the New York Islanders. The Florida Panthers had the Tampa Bay Lightning. Steel sharpens steel. Sometimes, it takes a dynasty to make a dynasty. It takes a multiple champion to create a multiple champion.

Wayne Gretzky’s Oilers couldn’t become what they became until they found a way past the Trottier-Bossy-Potvin Islanders, who themselves had to find a way past the final vestiges of the Montreal Canadiens’ incomparable dynasty.

Florida’s emergence as a two-time champion and three-time finalist came only after the Panthers dethroned the Lightning, an inversion of power that reverberated through two brawl-filled games this preseason that made “Slap Shot” look like a documentary, not a parody.

And now the Panthers have become the final boss for the Carolina Hurricanes, having lost eight of nine conference finals games to the back-to-back champions over the past three seasons. For the Hurricanes to reach their full potential in the postseason, to have a chance to compete for the Stanley Cup they have been circling for several years, they have to assume they’re going to have to beat the Panthers at some point.

The question now, as another new season begins Thursday against the New Jersey Devils, is whether they have learned enough, been toughened enough, sharpened enough to do it.

There will be factors outside the Hurricanes’ control that play into that process. There always are. The Oilers caught up with the aging Islanders. The Panthers were rising as the Lightning were bled by the salary cap. And now the Panthers are showing the wounds of three long postseason runs, with Aleksander Barkov out for the year and Matthew Tkachuk a good chunk of it. Sergei Bobrovsky is 37. Time is catching up with them.

But it is also incumbent upon the Hurricanes to seize on that opportunity if and when it presents itself. After bowing out early in 2024, they got bigger at forward down the lineup with the addition of William Carrier, Eric Robinson and Mark Jankowski (albeit smaller up the lineup with Jackson Blake and Logan Stankoven). After the five-game loss to the Panthers last May, they’re bigger on defense with K’Andre Miller and Alexander Nikishin. Quietly, they have narrowed the size gap with the Panthers.

In terms of style, Rod Brind’Amour is the first to say the Panthers are trying to do what the Hurricanes do, not the other way around. The Panthers have just done it better. The shot-volume discussion is a red herring. It will come down to goals and goaltending, two areas where the Hurricanes haven’t demonstrated the same consistency of results as they have elsewhere on the ice — especially this season, with the evolving changing-of-the-guard in net between Frederik Andersen and Pyotr Kochetkov.

Now the Hurricanes face the same long, 82-game slog through the regular season, the six-month purgatory for a contender, waiting desperately for games that matter. But there is a tone to be set, an identity to hone, a goaltending situation to sort itself out. It’s not wasted time, it just takes forever.

Old roadblocks have withered. The Boston Bruins and New York Rangers no longer stand in the Hurricanes’ way, while the Hurricanes have established physical and mental dominance over the Devils and New York Islanders. The Devils will be looking to flip that script given the opportunity, the same way the Hurricanes are looking to flip the script on the Panthers.

But this really comes down to two teams, as it has two of the past three years. Analytically speaking, there’s a consensus among models that the Hurricanes are the best team in the Eastern Conference. Historically speaking, the Panthers are the team to beat until someone beats them. That hasn’t changed from May: The Hurricanes know exactly where the bar is set. They have seven months to figure out how to clear it.

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