Rivals across the league say the Carolina Hurricanes style squeezes time and space out of the game, a suffocating approach that fueled their Stanley Cup championship and has proven incredibly difficult to imitate.
Ottawa captain Brady Tkachuk, whose Senators were swept last spring, said Carolina gives opponents “no time and space.” Philadelphia’s Jamie Drysdale called the group relentless, and Trevor Zegras remembered wave after wave that “over a series, it wears you down.” The Flyers were also swept.
By the Eastern Conference Final, Montreal’s Cole Caufield figured the Hurricanes had reached a point of being nearly unbeatable. The Canadiens took the opener, then dropped the next four.
In the Stanley Cup Final, Vegas forward Mitch Marner likened the approach to a full-court press, saying teams often need three sharp plays just to create one good look. The Golden Knights led the series 2-1 before losing three straight and the championship.
Carolina’s title has other contenders studying the formula. Yet coaches and players acknowledge that the Hurricanes play a demanding brand of hockey under Rod Brind’Amour, one that is hard to replicate without years of repetition and a roster built to sustain it.
“It takes time to get to that level,” Tkachuk said, now positioned to challenge with Cup-favorite Florida. “They play such a hard way and a tough way. You try different ways to beat them. But they’re just so good at what they do.”
Brind’Amour, a grind-it-out center during his two-decade NHL career, sets an exacting standard. Predictability and buy-in have been central to Carolina reaching the playoffs in each of his eight seasons.
Top defenseman Jaccob Slavin said the system has barely changed, aside from minor tweaks. It is not pretty, he added, but it is a high-stress, high-compete game built on getting pucks out, getting pucks in, and repeating that without deviation.
Why the Carolina Hurricanes style is so hard to copy
The results speak for themselves. Since Brind’Amour took over in 2018, no team has won more games.
Tampa Bay’s Jake Guentzel, who played 28 games for Carolina after a 2024 deadline trade, said the coach sets the bar high and players must fully buy into the system.
That system is all-out pressure. Carolina pursues the puck across all three zones, aiming to force mistakes and strike quickly.
“You’re always under the pressure, no matter where you are,” said Pavel Dorofeyev, now with the Rangers after facing the Hurricanes in the Final with Vegas.
Guentzel enjoyed his time in Raleigh, but acknowledged the fit is not universal.
Martin Necas, productive at better than a point per game, was traded to Colorado in January 2025. The primary piece coming back, Mikko Rantanen, was sent to Dallas five weeks later after it became clear he did not want to sign long term.
Some around the league compare the Hurricanes to the Panthers, who beat them in the East final in 2023 and 2025. In 2024, Carolina outshot the Rangers 223-156 in the second round, but New York’s Igor Shesterkin outdueled the Hurricanes’ goaltending.
It is not just rivals who struggle to copy the blueprint.
Washington’s Tom Wilson noted that it can be difficult for Carolina to sustain that intensity as well. Against a healthier opponent like Florida in prior years, the Panthers did not need to play quite as hard to prevail, he said. “You kind of live and die by the sword.”
Last spring’s title run showed the payoff when everything, from the net out, clicks.
“They did it the right way,” Caufield said, calling their game uniquely detailed and precise. If they deviate, he added, the results change.
With most of the core intact, Carolina enters the new season as the Metropolitan Division favorite, grouped with Florida and Tampa Bay among the East’s elite.
Sustaining the Carolina Hurricanes style, however, remains its own challenge.
“Their toughness is their pressure, their skating,” Wilson said. “But, like, will they be able to repeat it all year again and go into the playoffs and go on another run? Good for them if they can.”
