The Carolina Hurricanes enter the new NHL season with the target on their backs and the Stanley Cup in their hands, after rolling through last spring with the kind of postseason run the league hadn’t seen since the late 1980s.
That reality isn’t lost on the rest of the field. Montreal winger Cole Caufield summed up the challenge in one line: “It kind of gives you something to chase after,”
Carolina has become the measuring stick. The Hurricanes finally broke through in their eighth straight playoff trip, after years of painful exits, and their 16-3 postseason mark was bettered only by Wayne Gretzky’s 16-2 Oilers in 1988 since the league settled into four rounds of best-of-seven in 1987.
They also return almost everyone from that title team, with Frederik Andersen the lone major change in goal. Jaccob Slavin said the standard around the club has already been set.
“I feel like multiple years in a row, teams know that going to Carolina or when Carolina comes in, it’s going to be a hard night,” Slavin said. “Teams always have been giving us their best for years now, and winning the Cup just adds to that.”
Florida is right there in the chase, and maybe even in the lead pack. After injuries ripped through last season and knocked the Panthers out of the playoffs, they come back with the core that won consecutive titles in 2024 and ’25 and reached the Final three straight times.
Aleksander Barkov is back from a torn ligament in his right knee, and the roster has been reinforced by Brady Tkachuk, Seth Jones, Brad Marchand, plus new goalies Jacob Markstrom and Akira Schmid. The group already included Barkov, Matthew Tkachuk, Sam Reinhart, Sam Bennett, Anton Lundell, Gustav Forsling and Aaron Ekblad.
Barkov said the goal is obvious, even if the Panthers aren’t rushing the calendar.
“Of course that’s our dream, that’s our goal, but for us it’s always been a day at a time,” Barkov said. “We don’t think too much ahead.
We only live in the moment, try to live in a moment. And that's what it is.
Of course we added unreal players, we added real leaders to our team and we’re really excited about that."
Out West, the path looks just as brutal. Connor McDavid is still searching for his first Cup after 11 seasons, including a Game 7 loss to Florida in the 2024 Final and a six-game loss to the Panthers the next year.
Edmonton signed him to a two-year extension through 2028 without a raise, giving the front office room and a deadline to sort things out. The Oilers are also making a surprising coaching move, turning to Mike Babcock, a decision that stunned Mark Messier.
“I am absolutely shocked they hired him,” Messier, now an ESPN analyst, said on a conference call Wednesday. “I’m absolutely shocked from the stories that I heard from very good, reputable, character people about the way they were treated.
It’s been no secret. ... I am just horrified about the whole thing, to be honest.”
Edmonton will have to navigate a Western Conference that still runs through the Golden Knights and through heavyweights like Colorado, Dallas or Minnesota. Dallas is trying to recover from a first-round loss to Minnesota. Colorado, the 2022 champion, has one more season before Cale Makar’s record-setting contract kicks in, with Makar, Nathan MacKinnon and the rest still in their prime.
Landeskog said the pressure comes with the territory.
“Pressure is a privilege, and it has to be embraced," Landeskog said. “It’s not to say that you go every single day of the regular season and wake up thinking, ‘Oh, it’s Cup or bust.'
But I think you’re aware of it. You know where your team’s at.
Everybody knows it.”
This season will be longer than ever before, with each of the league’s 32 teams playing two extra games and the regular season stretching to 1,344 games, the most in NHL history, before the field is cut to 16 in April. And when the puck finally drops for all of it, the race to June starts with Carolina at the center of the storm.
In Other News...
Hurricanes Still Need Clarity On One Roster Situation At Camp
Training camps are moving along, but Carolina still has a notable loose end on its blue line as the Hurricanes sort through their early roster picture. Around the league, a few prominent restricted free agents are lingering without deals, with Adam Fantilli and Columbus still working toward a contract and Simon Edvinsson taking part in Detroits camp while negotiations continue.
For Carolina, the more immediate question centers on Alexander Nikishin, whose status has been unsettled since an offseason trade request. The Hurricanes have opened camp without him, leaving another layer of uncertainty for a team that would rather have clarity now than let a key roster situation drift deeper into the season planning process. [Read more 🡒]
Hurricanes Fans Have A New Reason To Revisit A Summer What-If
A familiar name has resurfaced in the AHL, and it offers Hurricanes fans a small reminder of the kind of summer market Carolina was keeping tabs on. Veteran winger Anderson has signed a professional tryout with Hershey and is on the Bears training camp roster, a modest move on paper but one that can still stir up old conversations for a team that was weighing plenty of options before the season got rolling.
For Carolina, the interest was never just about adding another body. The Hurricanes were among the teams that looked into Alex Formenton, a player whose path and fit drew attention around the league before he landed elsewhere, and the ripple effect of those decisions is still easy to see now that he is tied to another organizations plans. His eventual choice left Carolina to look back at a summer what-if, the sort of roster subplot that can linger when a team is always searching for the right blend of speed, age and upside. [Read more 🡒]
Hurricanes Just Won It All But The Path Back Looks Tougher
The celebration in Carolina is still fresh after the Hurricanes captured their first Stanley Cup since 2006, finishing off the Vegas Golden Knights in six games. It was the kind of spring run that can change a franchises mood in a hurry, especially with Vegas having just swept Colorado in the Western Conference Finals and looked like the team most likely to keep rolling before the Final.
Still, the road back to another parade already looks crowded, with early offseason movement around the league serving as a reminder that nothing stays still for long. Anaheims decisions around Leo Carlsson and Mason McTavish reshaped one Pacific Division picture, Buffalo finally ended its 14-year playoff drought while also sending Alex Tuch to Washington, and the Hurricanes now face the harder task that comes after the breakthrough: proving the title was the start of something, not the finish. [Read more 🡒]