The Carolina Hurricanes' 2024-25 season came to a close earlier this week as the team lost in five games to the Florida Panthers in the Eastern Conference Final.

On Friday, select players met with the media in Raleigh for their end-of-season interviews.

Jordan Martinook

On if he was healthy this postseason: I was good. Obviously everybody is playing with stuff. You’ve got bruises and nicks, but I was good.

On if this felt like his best season and how he judges that: I think every year you’re trying to get better. I think looking over the last three, four years, I’ve felt like I’ve been… obviously the older you get, usually it goes the other way, but I’ve felt like I’ve kind of maybe found a little Benjamin Button type thing and I’m getting better as I get older. Hopefully that continues. But yeah. I don’t know if it’s my best season, but obviously points-wise it was, but just trying to get better. Once you’re sitting here after a loss, you don’t really think about personal stuff too much. Yeah… I don’t know. Sorry.

On if this season surprised him at all given what they lost and what they were still able to do: I would have to say yes because just knowing we lost some pretty core pieces, some guys who have been here a long time and were unbelievable players for us. Obviously you’re trying to replace them with other guys and maybe some people that we didn’t know much about at the time, but then to see the way we started the season, we went on that big run to start the season. You grow a bond when you start winning and start off that way. I felt like it was just a great group of guys that really just gelled together. Maybe we weren’t supposed to be as good as we ended up being, but I think it just shows how much work went into it and how much people really cared about this team.

On if he thinks next year can be a big one for the organization given their cap space and available assets: That’s probably a question for somebody a little higher up than us, but obviously, as players, you want to have the best team that you can. So if that means they go out and get somebody in free agency or however that may be, if it improves our team, then we’re going to sit here in September and be excited about it. You want to play with good players and you want to give yourselves the best chance to win. I firmly believe they’re going to do everything they can to do that.

On what he’s seen from the growth of the team’s young core pieces: Obviously those guys are kind of the driving force of this team. [Sebastian Aho], I’ve been lucky enough to play with him my whole time here and to see him… I feel like you see him grow as a player, but he’s been like that ever since I’ve gotten here. He leads us in the way he plays. Obviously [Seth Jarvis] has just taken steps every year. [Andrei Svechnikov], I felt like this was a big playoffs for him to get his confidence back. Being able to score, you definitely could see it in his play. It changes him when he’s scoring. Then obviously bringing in guys like [Logan Stankoven], who’s just going to be a heck of a player, and just watching him… yeah, there’s a lot of young pieces here that have set this organization up for success for a long time.

On if he thinks the team can win with its style of play: Everybody talks about it like it’s our style, but you look at the way Florida plays, we play very similar to them. So if they can win playing that way, then I think we can win playing that way. If you go back and watch those games, the whole point of their play is to get the puck out of their end, get it into your end, forecheck you and hope that you turn it over. It’s basically the same thing that every team in the league is trying to do. If it’s our style and they want to call it our style, then sure, great. Because you can win with it, because most teams are doing it. Sorry. Get a little rattled.

[Jaccob Slavin]: I’d say the same exact thing. You don’t see them turning the puck over in the neutral zone, you don’t see them trying to make plays through the neutral zone or at the blueline. Everything is out and everything is in. That’s exactly what we try to emphasize as well.

On if the loss to Florida creates more clarity in what this team is missing: Obviously you look back at the whole series and the games and you try to think, ‘Okay. What could we have done differently here, what could we have done differently here?’ But we lost two of our top six D, which obviously, that hurts. [Jalen Chatfield] and [Sean Walker] are great players and those are huge holes to fill. When you’re relatively healthy all season and you don’t have to really see what it’s like without guys, then you really notice it when you’re in the Eastern Conference Final. But, yeah. It’s still pretty raw and I want to give you a better answer, but I probably have to go back and watch these games and see what we could have done differently and all that stuff. Sorry.

2024-25 Exit Interviews

Jordan Staal
Sebastian Aho
Jaccob Slavin
Jalen Chatfield
Sean Walker
Jesperi Kotkaniemi
Frederik Andersen
Seth Jarvis
Andrei Svechnikov
Alexander Nikishin
Scott Morrow
Logan Stankoven
Eric Robinson
Dmitry Orlov
Brent Burns
Rod Brind'Amour and Eric Tulsky

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