Inside look at Carolina Hurricanes

NHL.com is providing in-depth roster, prospect and fantasy analysis for each of its 32 teams from Aug. 1-Sept. 1. Today, the Carolina Hurricanes.

The Carolina Hurricanes’ celebration of their first Stanley Cup championship since 2006 was just getting started when they began thinking about what they needed to do to win the Cup again this season.

It wasn’t that the Hurricanes didn’t appreciate what they had just achieved. Their clinching 3-0 victory against the Vegas Golden Knights in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup final was the culmination of an eight-season journey that began when Rod Brind’Amour was named coach in 2018.

After all the work they put in to finally get their hands on the Cup, though, they were far from satisfied.

“I don't think anybody loses their excitement for the game after they win,” Hurricanes general manager Eric Tulsky said. “If anything, it's so much fun, people want to do it again. They know how great it was and I think everybody's going to come back fired up to try and repeat, and knowing that everybody's going to be coming after us next year and seeing us as the team to beat.

“So, every game we play is going to be that much harder than it was last year.”

That will begin immediately after Carolina raises its Stanley Cup banner when it hosts the Florida Panthers in the season opener at Lenovo Center on Sept. 29 (5 p.m. ET; ESPN). The Panthers defeated the Hurricanes in the Eastern Conference Final in 2023 and 2025 during a run of three consecutive Stanley Cup Final appearances, including winning back-to-back championships in 2024 and 2025, and could be the biggest challengers to their repeat bid.

“It's good,” Tulsky said. “It should be a fun one to start the year and jump right back into it.”

Besieged by injuries, the Panthers failed to qualify for the Stanley Cup Playoffs last season, but they strengthened their roster with a flurry of moves that included acquiring forward Brady Tkachuk in a trade with the Ottawa Senators to unite him with older brother, Matthew.

The Hurricanes have had a quiet offseason so far and have essentially the same team as last season other than goalie Frederik Andersen, who signed a one-year, $2.8 million contract with the Edmonton Oilers on July 1. Carolina still has Brandon Bussi, who started the last three games of the Cup Final, and Pyotr Kochetkov in net and one of the deepest teams in the NHL playing in front of them.

Even without Seth Jarvis for the start of the season while he recovers from surgery on his right shoulder, the Hurricanes are poised to contend again with a forward group headed by Sebastian Aho, Nikolaj Ehlers, Andrei Svechnikov, Taylor Hall, Jackson Blake, Logan Stankoven and captain Jordan Staal, and a stout defense anchored by Jaccob Slavin, K'Andre Miller, Jalen Chatfield, Sean Walker and Shayne Gostisbehere.

Carolina has never been content with standing pat, though. One attempt to add fell short when they acquired then-pending free-agent defenseman John Carlson from the Anaheim Ducks on June 27 and tried to sign him before he signed a two-year, $17 million contract with the Tampa Bay Lightning on July 1.

Tulsky said he’s “still making calls every day.”

“We're always trying to get better,” he said. “We have a team that is extremely deep top to bottom and there's nobody in our lineup who you look at and say we really have to find a way to get rid of that guy. Just every player on our team fits and contributes, and that makes it hard to upgrade.

“The better you get, the harder it is to find players who make your team better.”

Carolina still has not re-signed restricted free agent defenseman Alexander Nikishin. The 24-year-old did not have arbitration rights and is ineligible to receive an offer sheet, so there has been no urgency to get the deal done, yet. Tulsky compared the situation to Jarvis’ in 2024 (he re-signed on Aug. 31), saying, “RFAs without (arbitration) rights are often the last thing to get settled,” but also acknowledged the trade rumors that have swirled around Nikishin this offseason.

“We certainly get a lot of calls on him. We always have,” he said. “We are, as always, looking to find ways to make the team better and if there are trades that will help move us forward, then, of course, we will do it.”

That was the Hurricanes’ approach throughout their long build toward winning the Cup last season, and their expectations haven’t changed.

“I think for a long time now we've had a team that was good enough to win if things went our way,” Tulsky said. “We had injuries, we'd run into a hot goalie, whatever. There were reasons it didn't go our way every year. This year, we finally had a year where we were healthy and where it was our team that was hot, and the result was great.

“But we still want to get to where we win even if things don't go our way. That means we need to keep taking steps forward.”