On Monday, the Carolina Hurricanes showed glimpses of the Florida Panthers' style of play when they won back-to-back Stanley Cups. They beat Brady Tkachuk's Ottawa Senators with Matthew Tkachuk in attendance.
Matthew Tkachuk has some good playoff memories in the Carolina Hurricanes' rink.
Scoring back-to-back overtime-winners in 2023 and eliminating the Canes in last year's Eastern Conference final stand out when he's on the Lenovo Center ice.
But on Monday, he sat in the stands with father Keith Tkachuk and mother Chantal to watch Brady Tkachuk's Ottawa Senators try to tie their first-round series.
They instead saw the Hurricanes show glimpses of a style that won Matthew Tkachuk's Florida Panthers back-to-back Stanley Cup championships. Carolina's relentless play helped the squad bounce back from a dramatic overturned goal and failed penalty shot to win 3-2 in double-overtime.
The Hurricanes are hitting hard and often. They're aggressive. And they don't seem afraid to take a penalty and get under the Senators' skin, because they have a suffocating penalty kill that hasn't been solved through Games 1 and 2.
After recording a whopping 57 hits in Game 1, Carolina had 43 on Monday for a combined total of 100. The Senators had 52 hits in Game 2 but 91 in the series so far.
The Panthers logged more than 1,000 hits in both of their runs to the Cup, averaging the second-most checks last year and the fifth-most in 2024. No team had more hits in their first game of the playoffs than the Canes, which only fell to ninth in hits per 60 minutes after Game 2 because they toned it down in both overtime periods.
Carolina's William Carrier handed out 12 bodychecks on Monday, while captain Jordan Staal had seven.
Andrei Svechnikov, who laid out seven hits in Game 2, also stirred the pot in post-whistle scrums. He was sent to the box for roughing Drake Batherson after the play and received an interference penalty later in the first period.
In 2023-24 and 2024-25, the Panthers accumulated the most penalty minutes in the NHL and finished second and first in minor penalties, respectively. In last year's playoffs, they also ranked second in minor penalties per game. (And yes, Matthew Tkachuk was among the six most penalized players both years.)
While taking penalties is obviously not a key to success, the Panthers didn't hurt themselves as often as other squads did when getting penalized. They had a league-leading 86.4 percent penalty kill in last year's playoffs and a second-place 88 percent kill rate in the 2023-24 post-season.
That meant Florida could irritate its opponents and not get frequently punished in the goals column.
Svechnikov served both his penalties in full during Game 2, as the Hurricanes went a perfect 3-for-3 on the PK. After going 4-for-4 last Saturday, they're 7-for-7 through two games.
Carolina is not going to the box as much as the Panthers did in their Cup runs, but getting to frustrate the Senators by roughing them up and killing any penalties that come its way builds confidence.
Part of the reason for the Hurricanes' stellar PK so far is their stingy play in the defensive zone.
In Game 2, the Canes' penalty-killers tried to give the Sens no time and space instead of passively protecting the slot. They defended their blueline to prevent the zone entry, and when the Senators got in, they pressed the puck carrier, swung at their sticks and the puck to stop any scoring opportunities and went in on puck battles.
"They're man on man everywhere, so everyone's got a guy on them," Senators right winger Drake Batherson told reporters before Game 2.
Carolina averaged the fewest shots against on the penalty kill during the regular season and the second-fewest shots in a limited sample size during these playoffs, according to naturalstattrick.com.
Florida averaged the third-fewest shots against while shorthanded in its 2024 Cup run and the fifth-fewest in the 2025 playoffs, so the Canes are arguably better in that regard at the moment.
They even generated a 2-on-1 in the final stages of their third kill in Game 2, with Sebastian Aho scoring right after the penalty ended to take a 2-0 lead.
It's no wonder Matthew Tkachuk said he doesn't think anybody enjoys playing Carolina before the 2025 Eastern Conference final.
"They're a tough team to play against and make it harder on you every game," he told reporters at the time.
Considering Brady Tkachuk's Senators now need to beat the Eastern Conference's No. 1 seed four times in the next four or five games to advance to the second round, it's only getting harder.
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