Hurricanes raise Stanley Cup banner prior to season opener

RALEIGH, N.C. -- The Carolina Hurricanes put the final exclamation point on their 2026 championship season by raising their Stanley Cup banner Tuesday at a sold-out and raucous Lenovo Center.

“Pretty special,” captain Jordan Staal said. “I wish we had time to give (the Cup) to everyone and get the crowd going. I thought we could have played a little better for the Caniacs tonight, but it was pretty special to have that Cup on the ice with them and share that moment.”

The ceremony came before the Hurricanes lost a 1-0 overtime decision against the Florida Panthers in a nationally televised game. Defenseman Gustav Forsling buried a long-distance shot on goalie Brandon Bussi with 4.3 seconds remaining.

“Cool experience,” Bussi said of the ceremony. “I think I will be able to appreciate it more than I do right now, but our fans deserved it. They deserved a moment like that. They probably deserved a better result, but it’s Game 1 of 84.”

Florida had won the Cup in each of the previous two seasons. In 2025, the Hurricanes lost to the Panthers in a bitterly contested Eastern Conference Final. The Panthers missed the playoffs last season.

The visitors came out early from their locker room and were on the bench to watch the presentation, which lasted 15 minutes.

“You get a chance to see what you want so bad,” Florida coach Paul Maurice said. “We think it’s really important that the teams respect each other for those achievements, whether it’s an individual player hitting a milestone or certainly a Stanley Cup. They’ve earned the right to have as long a ceremony as they wanted, and it was well done.”

Forsling said it brought back memories of their championships and the emotions that went with it.

Carolina won the Stanley Cup last season with a six-game victory against the Vegas Golden Knights. The banner joined the one already in the rafters from the franchise's first championship in 2006. 

The first of many standing ovations came when coach Rod Brind'Amour, who was a player on the 2006 championship team, was introduced before the current players skated onto the ice one at a time from the Zamboni entrance.

The loudest ovations in that procession were for alternate captain Sebastian Aho, Bussi, who relieved the injured Frederik Andersen in the Final, and Staal, who was voted the winner of the Conn Smythe Trophy as MVP of the postseason.

Staal brought the Stanley Cup out with him, doing a victory lap with it over his head and then placing it at center ice, where the players had formed a circle. With the trophy on the ice, the players did the Storm Surge that has marked significant wins for the past several seasons.

Staal then scooped up the Cup and placed it on a pedestal between the two face-off circles while a sizzle reel of the playoffs played on the jumbotron. The players, in all-black uniforms, stood in front of their bench, craning their necks to watch the repeat of their triumph and the ensuing parade.

Tuesday was the first time the Stanley Cup was on public display at Lenovo Center since the Hurricanes defeated the Golden Knights 3-0 in Game 6 at T-Mobile Arena, capping a dominant run of 16 wins in 19 games in the postseason, during which they finished with a plus-27 goal differential.

“To me, that was more for the fans,” Brind’Amour said of the celebration. “They didn’t get to see us celebrate it on home ice, so it was kind of nice to do a little victory lap. I thought that was nice. They need to enjoy that stuff. They are a big part of the success we have had over the years. I thought that was pretty cool.”

Once the highlights were over and a "Let's Go Canes" chant started filling the building, the players lined up across the blue line and tapped sticks as the crisp white banner with red lettering started its ascent.

It stopped momentarily so the players could get a photo taken with it in the background before the journey to the rafters began anew.

Of the 23 players who dressed in the 2026 postseason, 21 remain with the Hurricanes, an almost unprecedented rate of stability for a Stanley Cup champion in this era of free agency.

Andersen moved on to the Edmonton Oilers as an unrestricted free agent, and defenseman Alexander Nikishin is a restricted free agent who has yet to be signed.

Nineteen of those players were in the lineup for the Hurricanes on Tuesday. Forward Seth Jarvis was out, recovering from shoulder surgery. Defenseman Mike Reilly was a healthy scratch. He was replaced by rookie Charles Alexis Legault, who played 12 regular-season games with Carolina last season.