The Hurricanes’ first step toward history came with a sweep that never really let Ottawa breathe.
Carolina handled the Senators in four straight, and the defining thread was simple: the Canes scored first in every game and never gave the lead away. That made the opening round look clean on the surface, even if one game - and one overturned goal - made things a lot messier underneath.
Ottawa had earned its way into the matchup the hard way. At the Olympic Break, the Senators were six points out of a Wild Card spot and well outside the Top 3 in the Atlantic Division.
Then they surged late, going 16-5-4 to finish fifth in the division and slide into the second Wild Card spot, four points ahead of the Capitals. They nearly grabbed the first Wild Card too, ending one point behind the Bruins before drawing Carolina.
Game 1 set the tone fast. Jordan Staal and Brady Tkachuk dropped the gloves right away, and both goalies were sharp through the first period. The breakthrough came early in the second when Alexander Nikishin kept the puck alive in the zone and the Stankoven line worked it until Logan Stankoven slipped in the first postseason goal through the five-hole.
Frederik Andersen kept Ottawa from answering, turning aside two big power-play chances in the third. Carolina then got its insurance marker when Nikishin’s shot was stopped and the same trio kept digging until Stankoven banked the puck off Taylor Hall’s skate. Andersen finished with 22 saves in the 2-0 win.
Game 2 brought the series’ wildest stretch. The Stankoven line struck again on the power play, with Hall setting up Stankoven in front for the opening goal. That gave all three forwards points on the first three goals of the series.
Carolina then stretched the lead when Jordan Staal and Sebastian Aho broke free on a 2-on-1 as Ottawa’s power play wound down, and Aho finished it. But the Senators pushed back hard. Drake Batherson and Dylan Cozens scored in the second half of the middle period to tie it 2-2, and the score stayed there through a scoreless third.
The Hurricanes thought they had ended it in overtime when Mark Jankowski buried a rebound, but the goal was wiped out after a review showed potential offside earlier in the sequence. Jordan Martinook had also been hooked on a breakaway before that play, which led to a penalty shot.
Linus Ullmark stopped Martinook, and the game kept going. Martinook got his revenge in double overtime, snapping a shot from the slot past a screened Ullmark to finally win it for Carolina and send the Canes up 2-0.
Back in Ottawa for Game 3, the pattern held. Stankoven again opened the scoring, this time hammering a one-timer past Ullmark from the left dot.
Hall then drew heat from the home crowd after a hit on Jake Sanderson that the league ruled an illegal hit to the head. Sanderson’s series ended soon after, a tough blow for the Senators.
Batherson tied it late in the second, but Carolina answered quickly. K’Andre Miller sold the shot and instead slipped a gorgeous cross-seam pass to Jackson Blake, who finished 83 seconds later to restore the lead. Andersen took care of the rest, and the Hurricanes moved within one win of the sweep.
Game 4 had more edge to it. Tyler Kleven hit Nikishin in the second period, though the league ruled the contact clean. Tkachuk and Nicolas Deslauriers also got into a skirmish, and Ridly Greig later got away with a sucker punch on Sean Walker that eventually led to a suspension.
The scoring still came down to the key moments. Hall broke the deadlock late in the second by slipping one through Ullmark’s pads, but Batherson answered on the power play less than two minutes later.
In the third, Carolina’s power play delivered again when Stankoven pounced on a missed shot off the endboards for his fourth goal of the series. Sebastian Aho added an empty-netter with 2:22 left, Cozens briefly made it interesting, and Aho finished it off with another empty-net goal to seal a 4-2 win and a four-game sweep.
The numbers tell the story of how decisive Carolina was. Ullmark was excellent for Ottawa, finishing with a .932 save percentage and a 2.03 GAA, but Andersen was even better with a .955 save percentage and a 1.10 GAA to go with four wins.
The offense ran through the Stankoven line. Hall finished with 2-5-7, Stankoven had 4-1-5, and Blake posted 1-3-4.
Those three accounted for 64 percent of Carolina’s goals and points in the series. Aho added three goals, Martinook had one, and Ottawa’s scoring came entirely from Batherson, who scored three times, and Cozens, who had two.
For a sweep, it was surprisingly tight in spots, especially with the chaos of Game 2. But Carolina never trailed, and that made the series feel controlled from start to finish.
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For Carolina, the appeal is straightforward: a college standout becomes a potential pro option without much public noise around the transaction. The next step is the one that matters, since the organization is now positioned to bring Sardarian into the fold on a professional deal and see where he fits in the system. [Read more 🡒]
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Carolina is already having to think through what comes next if the roster does not include Nikishin, and there are not many easy answers. Shayne Gostisbehere can help absorb some of the puck-moving load, while the organization may also need to look at AHL depth to patch the rest of the picture. The challenge is less about finding a single replacement than finding enough coverage for a role that was doing a lot of different things at once. [Read more 🡒]
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The wrinkle is in the contract itself, which does not leave room for an NHL recall unless Carolina signs him to an NHL deal during the 2026-27 season. That makes Slavins return useful for the Wolves and a little less flexible for the Hurricanes, who now have one more layer to sort through as they keep building out their organizational depth. [Read more 🡒]