Hurricanes overpower Panthers with a relentless offensive surge, featuring Ehlers' hat trick and a barrage of special-teams goals.
The Florida Panthers couldn’t keep their brief winning streak alive as they continued a long road trip Friday night in Raleigh.
Florida ran into a buzzsaw as the Carolina Hurricanes dominated much of the contest, taking down the Panthers 9-1 at Lenovo Center.
Carolina controlled the majority of the opening period and were eventually rewarded for their strong start.
Jordan Staal made a perfect cross-zone pass to a streaking Nicolaj Ehlers, who quickly went to his forehand and wired the puck past Sergei Bobrovsky to send the Hurricanes into the first intermission with a 1-0 lead.
They outshot Florida 13-3 in the opening frame.
Florida bounced back quickly though, knotting the score less than 90 seconds into the second period.
Rookie Sandis Vilmanis carried the puck into Carolina’s zone, dropping it for Mackie Samoskevich who was quickly checked off the puck by Sean Walker.
The puck kept sliding across the zone, and Uvis Balinskis walked into a one-timer that beat Brandon Bussi to tie the game at one.
For the Panthers, it was all downhill from there.
A pair of goals about three minutes apart by Mark Jankowski and Alexander Nikishin gave Carolina a comfortable two-goal edge heading into the third period.
Early in the final frame, Andrei Svechnikov make it 4-1 Hurricanes on a power play goal that came just after a 5-on-3 advantage came to an end.
That wasn’t an issue for Carolina because a few minutes later they had another two-man advantage, and this time Ehlers picked up his second goal of the game, extending the Canes’ lead to four.
Just 21 seconds later, Taylor Hall scored a fourth straight power play goal for the Hurricanes to give them a 6-1 lead.
Ehlers completed his hat trick less than 90 seconds after Hall’s goal, causing headgear to litter the ice and creating a delay that the Panthers were surely salty about, as it meant they had to wait that much longer before getting the hell out of there.
Eventually, the game did come to an end, but not before Hall scored another one to give the Hurricanes an eighth goal, and Eric Robinson scored moments later to make it 9-1 because why not.
On to Washington.
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Photo caption: Jan 16, 2026; Raleigh, North Carolina, USA; Carolina Hurricanes center Jordan Staal (11) is stopped on his breakaway attempt by Florida Panthers goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky (72) during the first period at Lenovo Center. (James Guillory-Imagn Images)