From my own photos of them winning the cup

If I had a nickel for every Dane to score in an cup clinching game at T-Mobile Arena, I'd have two nickels. (Yes, Lars Eller played for Washington. But I still hate Vegas regardless!)

Just saw this buried down low in the email from the team about hockey returning this month. Looks like the team is going with a new design for the 2026 Cup Champions banner. Wonder if they'll be refreshing the 2006 banner as well

Better than those cheap sweatshirts they were giving out last year at least

Apologies if I missed anything announced already - tired to purchase parking for the preseason game v FLA and for the Oct 13 game vs WAS. In ParkWiz I get a notice that there is no advanced parking/reservations available. Am I just too early in trying to buy parking or is there a change this season on how things are being done? Thanks

I’m a canes fan in the Roanoke, Virginia area, so outside of Carolina but closer to yall than I am to TN or DC. I’m riding the line of three different regions so can someone help me figure out if I’m in the clear for the streaming or not?

Also which hotels would you recommend? Used to have family in Raleigh so went pretty often, but always stayed near Crabtree.

If you forgot who blew up Chatty back in November and put him out for 10 games, it was Tyler Pitlick, who then got promptly pounded into the ice by our captain. Pitlick tried to make a name for himself early on in the season and instead ended up with 2 points and a -4 for the season out of 32 games played. I'm still salty about how long it took Chatty to get back to full strength, he probably could have had his best season yet on top of winning the cup had this dude not blown him up.

I am attempting to buy passes for the new season and think I might have gotten scammed. The pass for the game I bought was listed as VIP, but when I received the ticket, it states Lot Gen2 general admission. I assume this means that the ticket was, in fact, not for VIP as it was advertised. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

This may be common knowledge but I can't find anything on it. Is a community game going to happen this year? How often do they do them?

The title is basically the TL;DR. Okay look.

Let's start with the basics. Sebastian Aho is 4th in Hurricanes (just Carolina) history in games played and 2nd in all three scoring categories. For the Playoffs, he's 1st in basically everything: goals, assists, points, tied for games played, game winning goals, shots on goal. If it involves Playoff scoring with the Hurricanes, Sebastian Aho is the best. Any comparison there is to be made with another Hurricane, Fishy is at very least on par with if not better than the other guy when it comes to the Playoffs so I'm just going off of regular season numbers: the ones that make it into the all-time record books.

The name that Fishy is put next to is Eric Staal. For younger fans or newer fans who might not know of Eric Staal beyond his homophobia or the long tail end of his career, Hurricanes Eric Staal was beastly. As of right now, Eric Staal is the only player to ever score 40 goals in a season for the Hurricanes and he did it twice. He is the only player ahead of Sebastian Aho in the three scoring stats. How far ahead is he? Well...

Goals: Staal - 322 / Aho - 310 / Difference - 12

Assists: Staal - 453 / Aho - 401 / Difference - 52

Points: Staal - 775 / Aho - 711 / Difference - 64

Those gaps are not very large and they get smaller when you realize that Eric Staal took over 900 games to reach his marks. Sebastian Aho put up his numbers in 153 fewer games. Aho has played in 10 seasons and Staal played for the Hurricanes in 12 seasons (11.5 because he got traded). If you dropped the extra seasons (which were Staal's worst), he has 21 goals fewer than Aho has right now but in 13 more games. Aho's lowest goal total in a season is double the distance from Staal's mark, and Aho has had 3 seasons (including this past one and two of his last three) where he has eclipsed 52 assists.

It is possible going on likely that Sebastian Aho takes the all-time team lead in all three scoring stats next year. If he does that, there will be almost no doubt. He's already the greatest Playoff Hurricane. By fair measuring sticks, Sebastian Aho is on pace to be the greatest Hurricane of all time next year or the year after.

But what about unfair measuring sticks?

There are three numbers that kind of haunts this entire narrative and those numbers are 382, 793, and 1175. Those are the franchise records for goals, assists, and points set by Ron Francis over 1186 games in Hartford and a little in Carolina. These are numbers that were generally assumed to be untouchable for ages. It's the reason I specified just Carolina. Surely no one has a realistic shot at taking down those numbers set by one of the greatest players in hockey history in the 80s. Right?

The assists number is likely to be the most untouchable, but eclipsing the points mark will carry more weight. Sebastian Aho has been almost exactly a point per game player (597 points, 596 games, it's nuts) since he moved to center in the 2018/19 season. With 711 points, he is 464 points away from matching the Franchise's (see it's a pun) best mark of 1175. If Aho remains a point per game player, that means 464 games which is just higher than five and a half full seasons (thanks to the new 84-game schedule) of NHL hockey. That puts Sebastian Aho in his age 34 season. It is easy to imagine a world where Fishy is still putting up numbers at that age. Hell, John Tavares put up 71 points this year on a bad team and he's 35.

I'll end on one more thing. Ron Francis was the leading points scorer for three Whalers Playoff teams. Those three teams combined for zero series wins. Ron Francis was the leading points scorer for one Hurricanes Playoff team. Eric Staal was the leading points scorer for one Hurricanes Playoff team. Only one player has been the leading points scorer for multiple Hurricanes Playoff teams. He has done it 7 times. Only one player in the history of this franchise has ever been the leading points scorer for multiple teams that won a Playoff series. That player is Sebastian Aho: the greatest Carolina Hurricane of all time.

Pirated the games I couldn’t get locally but can’t pirate at work, is sports net plus enough to catch most games? I know Amazon and the national games are covered through cable. Being out of market I can’t get the other games.

Sam is a beat writer for the Dallas Stars, where this rumor is originating from.

Never forget game 4 in Buffalo. What are the odds of doing all of our cup winning goalies (who have won at least one playoff game in said cup winning runs) in a row on this countdown?