Hurricanes Punch Their Ticket Back to the Cup Final After 20-Year Wait

Carolina is back on the sport’s biggest stage, and the wait has been long enough to fill a couple of front offices and a few eras of bad playoff dreams. The Hurricanes have spent years trying to turn good regular seasons into something that actually matters in June, and now the pressure gets real. This is the kind of run that changes how a franchise is judged, especially when the last trip to the Final feels like ancient history in NHL terms.