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Carolina Hurricanes

Stanley Cup Scores in Ratings

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NEW YORK – (Wire Service Report) – The high-scoring Stanley Cup Final turned into a ratings win for ABC, which drew the highest viewership for the NHL’s championship round in seven years, the network announced.

The Carolina Hurricanes’ six-game win over the Vegas Golden Knights attracted an average of 5.2 million viewers. The last time more people tuned in to see the Stanley Cup Final was in 2019, when 5.3 million on average watched the St. Louis Blues top the Boston Bruins in seven games.

The decisive game of the Hurricanes’ title run brought in 5.9 million, the highest for a finals Game 6 since 2019. The Game 6 rating more than doubled the audience that saw the Florida Panthers lift the cup after winning Game 6 against the Edmonton Oilers last year.

The 2025 finals were carried on the Turner networks. The Sunday clincher saw a 40% viewership rise from the last time ABC had the finals, in 2024, another series featuring the Panthers and Oilers.

The peak for the Sunday game was 7.2 million late in the contest as Carolina wrapped up the second championship in franchise history.

The first five games of the 2026 finals all featured at least six total goals, with both teams pulling off comebacks and two contests extending into overtime. Only the finale, a 3-0 Hurricanes victory, bucked the trend of both teams scoring multiple goals.

Ratings on ABC and ESPN for the entire 2026 playoffs were the highest ever for the company, averaging 2.2 million across 43 games, the networks announced. That figure was up 127% from 2025 and up 19% from 2024. ESPN aired the NHL playoffs from 1994-2002 plus each year since 2021.

–Field Level Media

Vegas Blown Away: Like a Hurricane

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LAS VEGAS — Rod Brind’Amour captained the Carolina Hurricanes to their first Stanley Cup in 2006.

Twenty years later on Sunday night, Brind’Amour got to pick up and hold the trophy again on the ice at T-Mobile Arena after coaching the Hurricanes to another Stanley Cup victory.

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Rookie goaltender Brandon Bussi, a waiver-wire pickup from Florida in October, made 22 saves to win his third straight start and record his first career playoff shutout, and Jackson Blake had a goal and an assist to lead the Hurricanes to a 3-0 victory over the Vegas Golden Knights in Game 6 on Sunday night.

Taylor Hall and Nikolaj Ehlers also scored for Carolina, which won the best-of-seven series, 4-2.

“I think it was just our time,” Brind’Amour said. “We weren’t going to be denied.”

Carolina captain Jordan Staal, who tied a Stanley Cup Final record with goals in five straight games to start the series and totaled six goals in the finals, was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player in the playoffs.

According to Sportsnet Stats, Brind’Amour became just the fourth person to both captain and coach a franchise to a Stanley Cup, joining Toe Blake (Montreal Canadiens), Hap Day (Toronto Maple Leafs) and Cooney Weiland (Boston Bruins).

“It felt great (to lift the Cup again),” Brind’Amour said. “I’m so happy for everyone. That’s what this is about. That’s what hockey is about. It’s the ultimate team sport.”

Brind’Amour was asked to compare winning the Stanley Cup as a player and a head coach.

“It’s different, because as a player, I really wanted it for myself,” Brind’Amour said. “Now, sitting back behind (the bench) watching, I really wanted it for these guys because there’s no harder-working group. I see it every day. It’s just like a proud dad watching his kids go to work. Just couldn’t say enough good things about this group.”

At 37 years and 277 days, Staal became the oldest winner of the Conn Smythe. Goaltender Tim Thomas (2011) of the Boston Bruins was the previous oldest at 37 years and 61 days.

Staal also won the Stanley Cup in 2009 as a member of the Pittsburgh Penguins.

“That’s a lot of years,” Staal said. “I mean, it’s amazing. It’s something I’ve been going after ever since I got the first one. You want to win it again and again and again.”

Carter Hart finished with 20 saves for Vegas, which lost in the finals for the second time in the team’s nine-year history. The Golden Knights won the Stanley Cup in 2023.

Hall gave Carolina a 1-0 lead at the 3:47 mark of the first period. Jaccob Slavin set up the score with a stretch pass from blue line to blue line. Hall was open as he took the pass and broke in on the left wing, beating Hart with a wrist shot past his glove side for his seventh goal of the playoffs and second in the finals.

Vegas, which outshot the Hurricanes 11-8 in the opening period, had several excellent chances to tie the game later in the period. Brett Howden broke in alone down the slot midway through the period, but Bussi made a stick save on his five-hole try.

The Golden Knights had a flurry of chances near the end of the period, including two close-in tries by Mark Stone and a one-timer by Pavel Dorofeyev from the bottom of the right circle that Bussi made a diving save to stop.

Carolina tightened up on defense in the second period, holding Vegas to just three shots on goal. The Hurricanes extended the lead to 2-0 at the 13:31 mark when Logan Stankoven fed Blake alone on the edge on the right circle, and Blake blasted a one-timer past Hart’s glove side for his seventh goal of the playoffs.

Vegas had a chance to cut the lead in half midway through the third period when Carolina forward Eric Robinson went to the penalty box for high-sticking Nic Dowd. On the ensuing power play, Stone crossed a pass to a wide-open Jack Eichel at the bottom edge of the left circle, but Eichel’s snap shot against a stickless Bussi went off the crossbar.

The Golden Knights pulled Hart for an extra attacker with three minutes to go, and Ehlers intercepted a pass and sealed the win with an empty-netter with 68 seconds to play, his eighth goal of the playoffs.

“As I’ve always said, it’s a find-a-way league,” Vegas coach John Tortorella said. “All the games were close, and it was just try to find a way, and they did tonight, and they beat us.”

Golden Knights defenseman Brayden McNabb, who played the final four  games with a full cage after taking an Ehlers slap shot on the nose that needed 30 stitches to repair, said he was proud of his team.

“We came together late in the year and we battled our asses off,” McNabb said. “I’m proud of how we got here. We just came up a little bit short.”

Slavin joined Ken Morrow (Islanders, 1980) as the only American-born players to win Olympic gold and the Stanley Cup in the same year.

–Steve Guiremand, Field Level Media

 

NHL: Stanley Cup Final Preview

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RALEIGH – (Wire Service Preview) – The Vegas Golden Knights know that the bookmakers in their own city have them as the underdogs in the Stanley Cup Final.

All that matters to the Golden Knights is what happens on the ice during the best-of-seven finals that begin Tuesday when they face the Carolina Hurricanes in Carolina.

“I honestly don’t really think I care or it matters to us,” Vegas defenseman Shea Theodore said on Monday. “We have belief in our room from the first game of playoffs up until now. Whatever is said is said. At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter who picks who. The better team ends up winning.”

The Golden Knights, who are riding a six-game winning streak, and the Hurricanes, who are looking to become the first NHL team to go 16-1 in the postseason, are both chasing a second Cup title in franchise history.

Carolina — the former Hartford Whalers franchise which became the Hurricanes for the 1997-98 season — for the won its only Cup in 2006 and had not reached the finals since. Vegas, which won in 2023, is in the finals for the third time in its nine-year history.

Thirteen players on this season’s Vegas roster played on that 2022-23 team.

“You can draw from your experience, knowing what to expect, having done it before and knowing what this is gonna look like,” said forward Jack Eichel, a member of that Cup-winning team. “But I think every series and every season has its own story, so we’re trying to write that now.”

Although Carolina’s run is garnering more headlines, the Golden Knights have been just as hot since the final few weeks of the regular season. After John Tortorella was hired in a late-season coaching change, Vegas posted a 7-0-1 mark down the stretch to claim the top spot in the Pacific Division and has marched through its opponents with a 19-4-1 record since he took over.

“He’s a big personality guy,” defenseman Brayden McNabb said. “So it’s very easy to get comfortable right away. He tells you exactly what he wants from you and it’s all black and white.

“He came in and preached the right things and got us playing better and better as a team.”

That said, the Hurricanes are worthy of their favorite status. Carolina reached this point by sweeping its opponents in the first two rounds — the Ottawa Senators and Philadelphia Flyers — and then knocking out the Montreal Canadiens in five games in the conference finals, which it concluded with a pair of dominant victories.

The Hurricanes are the first team since the 1976 Montreal Canadiens to win 12 of 13 games to open a playoff run. That Montreal team claimed the Stanley Cup, and the Hurricanes are looking to duplicate the feat.

“We went through so much … now we’re here,” forward Andrei Svechnikov said. “But still the job is not done. This is the biggest stage, we all know that, but now we have one more step.”

Reaching this point was a huge achievement for a Carolina club that reached the Eastern Conference finals for the third time in four years and fourth time in eight seasons, but was becoming known for falling short.

A key to the Hurricanes continuing their success, beyond the club’s stifling defensive play, will be to embrace the situation. After all, hockey history is loaded with clubs that managed to reach a new point but then failed to reload.

“We’ve been knocking on the door for this for a while. To be in this moment now, I think everyone is extremely grateful and super excited,” forward Seth Jarvis said.

“We’re competing for the Stanley Cup with 20 of my best friends. Twenty guys I’ve spent a lot of time with. To be here in this moment with this group of guys, I can’t ask for anything more.”

–Field Level Media

Bruins Caught in Hurricane

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RALEIGH – (Staff and Wire Service Report) – Andrei Svechnikov and Jack Roslovic each scored two goals and the Carolina Hurricanes had a huge first period in thumping the visiting Boston Bruins 8-2 on Thursday night in Carolina.

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Martin Necas finished with one goal and three assists, while Dmitry Orlov, Sean Walker and Jesperi Kotkaniemi also scored. The Hurricanes doubled their previous highest goal total of the season in the opener of a four-game homestand.

Carolina scored its final three goals of a four-goal opening period during a 52-second span. That marked the second-fastest three-goal bust in franchise history.

Pyotr Kochetkov made 13 saves for Carolina.

Brad Marchand and Hampus Lindholm scored for the Bruins, who’ve won only one of their last six games. Boston goalie Jeremy Swayman allowed six goals on 22 shots in less than half the game before he was pulled in favor of Joonas Korpisalo, who made 13 saves.

Carolina, which was coming off a 5-1-0 road trip, had seven first-period goals this season before racking up four in barely more than 18 minutes to begin Thursday’s game.

Roslovic’s fifth goal of the season came 6:28 into the game. With a Boston delayed penalty pending, the Hurricanes took advantage of sending in an extra skater and benefited from crisp puck movement.

The Bruins didn’t register a shot on goal for the game’s first 10 minutes, finally doing so while on a power play when Kotkaniemi was in the penalty box for a high-sticking double minor.

Soon, it turned into a 5-on-3 advantage for the Bruins. Marchand’s goal came at 13:11, with the puck going off Hurricanes defenseman Jaccob Slavin’s shin and past Kochetkov.

Less than 20 seconds later, the Bruins were on another 5-on-3, but they didn’t convert.

But the Hurricanes benefited from a power play of their own when Svechnikov deflected in a blast from Shayne Gostisbehere. Thirty-eight seconds later, Orlov blasted in a shot and then Necas scored just 14 seconds after that on a power play.

After Lindholm cut it to 4-2 early in the second for Boston, Svechnikov added his second power-play goal of the night at 8:51 and Roslovic tallied 41 seconds later to blow the game open.

–Field Level Media