With the final dance card of the 2026 Stanley Cup playoffs set with the Carolina Hurricanes advancing to take on the Vegas Golden Knights for the title, while the journey has been a fun ride for those in the Research Triangle and Sin City, overall, this year’s tournament has lacked the drama many have come to expect from the postseason.
Of the 12 series that were played so far this spring, just two went the full seven games, and neither involved either finalist. The last two rounds saw just two series go past five games, and just as many sweeps in those rounds.
Carolina went an impressive 12-1, only trailing in one series briefly after a lengthy layoff, but also didn’t seem to face much of a challenge as the team best suited to give them a run in the Eastern Conference was eliminated in the first round. Vegas, for its part, dropped just four games in the postseason, and like Carolina, only trailed once in a series by a single game.
While this was already going to be a strange playoff with several teams coming out of nowhere this year, this one lacked a lot of drama overall, as while there were some memorable moments and some spots that hadn’t seen playoff drama in a while got to join the party, the overall road to the final was pretty straightforward.
Now, the Hurricanes look for their first title since Rod Brind’Amour lifted the Cup as a player in 2006, and entering their third title round appearance since the team entered the NHL as the Hartford Whalers in 1979, while the Knights overcame an underwhelming regular season to roll to their third Finals appearance since entering the league as an expansion team in 2017.
Both teams aren’t exactly a big-market club, as this is the first Stanley Cup Final since 2017 not involving a team in a Top 20 U.S. TV market, with Raleigh-Durham ranked 22nd overall in Nielsen DMAs, while Las Vegas is ranked 40th overall – although both are growing rapidly. The NHL is helped by the fact that this year’s Stanley Cup Final is going to be broadcast in the U.S. on ABC, which should help somewhat, as ESPN and TNT would reach a reduced audience and have trouble generating numbers otherwise.
The two teams don’t really have national followings either, although Vegas certainly has grown a regional footprint with aggressive marketing out west, even doing programs hundreds of miles from its home base near the Strip. Carolina does have a fairly large regional area to take advantage of, especially with the departure of the Atlanta Thrashers 15 years ago, leaving it the only franchise between Washington and Florida, but overall, it isn’t considered one of the top-tier TV teams.
The lack of drama in the postseason is partially due to the NHL’s playoff format, which knocked out some of the league’s best teams by the second round, as 4 of the league’s top 10 point getters were out in the first round, while just two of the Top 5 were in the Conference Finals.
While the format is preferred by the league for both fostering divisional rivalries and the bracket game it has been promoting since it came along in 2015, it’s not one that usually benefits the top seeds, as the Presidents’ Trophy winner has failed to reach the Stanley Cup Final even once since it was implemented.
Certainly, a combination of the NHL’s playoff format creating uneven roads to the Finals contributed, as while this is the first meeting of regular-season division winners since 2018, Pacific Division champion Vegas was 13th overall in points, tied with the Washington Capitals with 95 overall, who missed the playoffs completely. For their part, Carolina, as the top seed in the East, like Vegas, didn’t see a 100-point team until the conference final.
And, as they say, a long playoff run is a combination of some good play on your side, some help outside your own series, and staying healthy. Both finalists arrive relatively healthy for the final round, while other teams got shredded by the meat grinder of tough playoff series.
Certainly both teams have been playing excellent hockey this spring, going 24-5 combined in the postseason after finishing off the regular season a combined a 15-4 after Vegas fired Bruce Cassidy in late March, but also faced in the playoffs just one team in the NHL’s Top 5 and two in the Top 8, with each team knocking out just 100-point team each, both in the conference finals.
Both teams benefited from upsets along the way, particularly Carolina, which saw probably their two toughest potential opponents eliminated by the Montreal Canadiens in the first two rounds, and by the time the Habs reached the third round, they certainly seemed to have little left in the tank. And the Golden Knights saw a tough Colorado Avalanche-Minnesota Wild second-round matchup prove costly to the Avs, as Cale Makar’s injury in Game 5 of that series certainly seemed to shift the tenor of the Western Conference Final when he was unable to dress for the first two games against Vegas and wasn’t able to really play well in the rest of the sweep.
Both teams benefited from a short series, limiting the strain on the roster, and neither team has been in any real danger so far this postseason, with the biggest adversity either team has faced was being in overtime and facing a two-game series deficit once this postseason.
But with just one series left before the summer, hockey fans can only hope that this Stanley Cup Final bucks the general trend of this year’s playoffs and delivers some drama, which has been largely lacking this season.
