Hurricanes’ 15-loss streak in East finals games is over. And Rod Brind’Amour is thrilled by that

SUNRISE, Fla. (AP) — Go back to June 1, 2006. Rod Brind’Amour was a captain then; he’s a coach now. Logan Stankoven was 3 years old then; he’s a budding star now. And in those days, when people talked about Cam Ward, they meant the goalie for the Carolina Hurricanes, not the quarterback for the Miami Hurricanes.

That was also the last day on which Carolina won an Eastern Conference finals game.

Until Monday, that is.

It’s over. Not the season. The streak. Carolina’s 15-game streak of consecutive losses in the East finals ended Monday night, with the Hurricanes beating the Florida Panthers 3-0 in Game 4 of their matchup. It was Carolina’s first win in the East finals since June 1, 2006 against Buffalo, a night where Brind’Amour — then the Hurricanes’ captain — got the game-winning goal.

“You know what? I didn’t even think about that,” Brind’Amour said. “But that’s nice.”

Carolina’s winning goal Monday came from Stankoven, someone whose future Brind’Amour raves about. Stankoven has no idea of the circumstances surrounding what had been Carolina’s most recent East finals win before Monday; considering he was a toddler when it happened, that’s understandable.

The odds of overcoming a 3-0 series deficit are overwhelmingly slim. A 3-1 deficit is no picnic either, but the Hurricanes at least know now that they can beat the Panthers in the playoffs.

“It’s just what you can do,” Stankoven said. “You start with one and go from there. We just try and preach about winning a period and going from there. And I think it was nice to get the lead tonight as well and play on our toes instead of on our heels.”

Under Brind’Amour, the Hurricanes have gone to the playoffs in seven consecutive seasons but have no Stanley Cups — or even Stanley Cup Final trips — to show for it. The seven straight playoff berths is the fourth-longest active run in the NHL, behind only Toronto’s nine, Colorado’s eight and Tampa Bay’s eight. The Lightning have two Cups in that span, the Avalanche have one.

This looked like it could have been the team to change the fortunes for Carolina. The Hurricanes rolled through the first two rounds, ousting New Jersey in five games in Round 1 and then needing only five more games to eliminate NHL all-time scoring king Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals in Round 2. They were a top 10 team this season in goals scored, a top 10 team this season in fewest goals allowed, had a pair of eight-game winning streaks this season and outscored the Devils and Capitals 34-18 in the first two rounds.

Momentum was building until the first three games against Florida. Now going home for Game 5, the Hurricanes still have a chance.

And streak talk, thankfully from Brind’Amour’s perspective, will end.

“I mean, it means like nothing to these guys because half of them weren’t here, but it’s been a story,” Brind’Amour said. “So, yeah, it’s nice to not have to talk about that.”

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AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl