Hurricanes eliminate Senators with 4-2 win, advance to second round

OTTAWA, CANADA - APRIL 25: Taylor Hall #71 of the Carolina Hurricanes reacts after scoring his teams first goal during the second period of Game Four of the First Round of the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs between the Ottawa Senators and the Carolina Hurricanes at Canadian Tire Centre on April 25, 2026 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. (Photo by Josh Lavallee/NHLI via Getty Images) | NHLI via Getty Images *Deep breath* *Exhales* *Cracks knuckles* The Carolina Hurricanes are officially heading to the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the sixth consecutive year after completing a sweep of the Ottawa Senators with a 4-2 win in Kanata on Saturday afternoon. A vicious, violent game came to an end with a regulation win thanks to a valiant effort from a Carolina penalty kill that was asked to dig deep again and again as well as goals from Taylor Hall and Logan Stankoven, who put an exclamation mark on their respective excellent efforts in the series.

So too did Frederik Andersen, who surrendered just five goals in his four starts against a team that came into the postseason as one of the hottest in the NHL. The first period went by without any goals or much in the way of incident before the second period became an absolute circus. The shenanigans began when Tyler Kleven hit Alexander Nikishin hard enough to knock Nikishin out of the game.

Andrei Svechnikov was assessed four minutes worth of roughing penalties. Brady Tkachuk received two, so Ottawa got a power play. I’ll spare the details on the remainder of the penalties in the second period, but one that was not called was a sucker punch from Ridly Greig to Sean Walker while Walker was already engaged with Warren Foegele.

Hall got the scoring started with a nice shot along the ice to beat Linus Ullmark, and Drake Batherson answered for Ottawa with his third of the series to tie the game at a goal apiece heading into the third. Carolina killed a partial 5-on-3 to start the third, and eventual the power play came through when Stankoven buried his fourth of the series to make it 2-1 and really put the pressure on Ottawa. Sebastian Aho got his second of the series with an empty-net goal with over two minutes to go.