Hurricanes Face Golden Knights in Nhl Finals With 16-1 Chance

The Carolina Hurricanes will meet the Vegas Golden Knights in the nhl finals, and Game 1 is set for Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET at Lenovo Center in Raleigh. Carolina can still become the first team to finish a postseason 16-1, a mark no NHL club has reached.

Carolina’s 12-1 Start

The Hurricanes reached this point by sweeping the Ottawa Senators, sweeping the Philadelphia Flyers, and then beating the Montreal Canadiens in five games. Their only loss came in a 6-2 defeat to Montreal in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Final.

That 12-1 start ties them to a line of NHL history that has held for almost five decades. The last team to open the playoffs 12-1 was Montreal in 1976, and no club has ever put together a 16-1 run through the four-round format that has existed since 1987.

Vegas Brings Its Own Pace

Vegas enters with a recent surge of its own. The Golden Knights have won 19 of 24 games since March 29, when John Tortorella replaced Bruce Cassidy as coach, and Carter Hart returned from a lower-body injury to take over in net.

The franchise has played deep into the postseason before. Since joining the NHL in 2017-18, Vegas has won 74 playoff games and 15 series, reached the Cup Final in 2018, and won the Stanley Cup in 2023.

Lenovo Center Opens The Series

Tuesday’s opener in Raleigh gives Carolina its first chance to push toward a finish no NHL team has posted. The Edmonton Oilers went 16-2 in 1988, while the Los Angeles Kings in 2012 and the Colorado Avalanche in 2022 each went 16-4, which is the closest any club has come to a perfect playoff sprint under the current format.

For the Hurricanes, the clean path so far has included no series going the distance and only one loss across 13 games. For Vegas, the six-game winning streak in the late stretch since the coaching change has turned this final into a matchup between one team chasing a record and another carrying a title-tested core into another June stage.