A new shooter among Hurricanes playoff opponents, Panthers still linked by history
We have the Florida Panthers to thank for the fact that the Carolina Hurricanes aren’t playing the Boston Bruins for the umpteenth time, and regardless of how one feels about the Bruins or the Canes’ chances against them, it is nice to skip that step for once — the sorting-through of all the same tired old narratives, regardless of the outcome.
Every team that has ever eliminated the Hurricanes from the playoffs is no longer active this spring, and not only are the Panthers a new shooter when it comes to the North Carolina postseason, there are precious few of those left. After playing the New York Islanders again and the New Jersey Devils again — imagine if you had told Martin Brodeur in 2001 that he would still be waiting 22 years later to win another playoff series against the Hurricanes — it’s a rare treat for the Hurricanes to bump into someone new this time of year, even if it’s still a franchise linked to the Hurricanes by cross-pollination, from Paul Maurice and Eric Staal on down, and shared roots in the Southeast Division.
You wouldn’t ever call it a rivalry with the Panthers, but there’s still a lot of water under this particular bridge, from when the Hurricanes first moved south and landed in the oft-mocked “Southleast” with the Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning and Washington Capitals and (RIP) Atlanta Thrashers, now the Winnipeg Jets but duly represented in this series by Hurricanes general manager Don Waddell.
Back in 1998, the Panthers were still chasing the high of getting smoked by the Colorado Avalanche in the 1996 Stanley Cup final, Miami Arena rats and all, but lost something leaving that dump for a shiny new building way out in Broward County wedged between a toll road and an outlet mall. It took more than two decades to overcome chronic bad management and regain that momentum.
Over that period of time, the Hurricanes mostly toyed with the Panthers, who accounted for 567 games of Olli Jokinen’s historic wait to appear in a playoff game. The Hurricanes were 44-28-14 against the Panthers during their time as division “rivals,” and there were some bad Carolina teams in that mix. If that wasn’t quite as dominant as the way the Hurricanes slapped around Les Thrash, it wasn’t far off.
That lack of competitiveness was a big reason why there was so little friction between any of these franchises trying to find their way in non-traditional hockey markets. At one point, their marketing departments attempted to collectively brand intradivision games as “Southeast Division Showdowns,” which never stuck.
But in the 14 seasons of that division, despite the annual stragglers — and everybody rotated through the basement, the Hurricanes landing Staal a year after coming within three wins of the Stanley Cup and the Capitals conveniently bottoming out in Alex Ovechkin’s draft year — it still accounted for two Stanley Cups and three Eastern Conference championships.
And the four surviving teams have continued, after going their separate ways, to dominate the postseason: Carolina, Tampa Bay and Washington account for five Stanley Cups in the past 18 years, while no matter who wins this series, a former Southeast Division team is going to play for the Stanley Cup for the sixth time in nine years.
Florida, by making it to the final four for the first time since 1996 and making the playoffs for the fourth straight season, is finally carrying its share of the load. Despite being the eighth seed in the conference, the Panthers are no pushover, not with the elite, high-end talent of Matthew Tkachuk and Aleksander Barkov and the turn-back-the-clock goaltending of Sergei Bobrovsky.
But they’re still not the Bruins, and from both a competitive and emotional standpoint, that’s a welcome change for everybody. Different is good, even if it’s familiar.
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