Hurricanes' Game 2 loss to Panthers offers an unwelcome repeat of conference-final history from '23

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The frustration bubbled over late in the second period, after the Carolina Hurricanes' latest rush failed to get off a shot while trailing big against the reigning Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers.

“Shoot the puck! Shoot the puck!" the pleading chants began before returning for a second stint minutes later, a departure for a venue known for rowdy chaotic zeal building a significant home-ice advantage.

The Hurricanes hadn't forgotten being swept out of the Eastern Conference final two years ago by the Panthers in four one-goal losses. This was supposed to be different. Instead, they're right back in a dire situation — only worse this time — against the Panthers after again losing the first two conference-final games at home.

And that has turned a losing streak that was once merely a curious footnote into a growing weight with each passing game.

“I think we're all a little bit at a loss,” Carolina forward Taylor Hall said.

The 5-0 loss in Game 2 marked Carolina's 14th straight loss in a conference final, going back to sweeps in 2009, 2019 and the ‘23 round with the Panthers. The past 10 have come during this current iteration that has won at least one postseason series for seven straight seasons. Parse it further, and the first four came in '19 as a young team happy to be back in the postseason after missing the playoffs for nine straight years before falling to favored Boston.

The past six though? All against the Panthers, with measuring-stick margins getting larger along with the potential for self-doubt as the series shifts south for Games 3 and 4.

“This game is mental,” Carolina captain Jordan Staal said. "I mean, it's all about the brain and your focus and the thoughts that can creep in. It's got to be the thoughts we've been thinking all year, and that's playing our game and focusing on our shifts and our battles and doing what we do.

“When you let those thoughts like that come in, it never looks good. I think we've got to believe in the group and what we have and what we've done all year, and go steal one in Game 3.”

Does he worry those thoughts could creep into the locker room?

“No, I think tonight was obviously not great,” Staal said, “but we're going to have to wash it and move on and own a crappy game.”

Carolina's last conference-final win was Game 7 in 2006 against Buffalo in the franchise's lone Cup title run, with Rod Brind'Amour being the captain who scored the third-period winner against the Sabres. Now he's coaching a team struggling for answers — any, really — after a 5-2 loss in Game 1 on Tuesday and a Game 2 that got away about the time Florida's Gustav Forsling scored 77 seconds after the puck drop.

“Obviously, we've got to just figure out how to win a period,” Brind'Amour said.

“We're not going to beat this team if we're not on the same page. And tonight for whatever the reason — I think the intentions were good, everyone's trying, ‘OK, I'm going to do this.’ But that's not how we do it. And it just backfired."

The formula for Carolina through two five-game playoff series, including against the conference's top-seeded Washington Capitals, remained as straightforward as ever. Use an aggressive forecheck to pressure opponents. Get into the offensive zone and stay there. Fire shots on net, chase rebounds and press the attack.

And oh yes, rely on a penalty kill that had been lights-out good in the playoffs.

Yet the Panthers have carried action with a deep and tested lineup, jumping to 2-0 and 3-0 first-period leads. They've scored four times on the power play, double what Carolina allowed as the postseason's best kill (28 of 30 with one short-handed goal) entering this series rematch.

Panthers star Matthew Tkachuk called Thursday’s start “unreal,” with Florida playing like it expected Carolina’s best punch after a Game 1 thumping. Only that never came, as the Hurricanes struggled to clear the puck or simply gave it away. The performance left Brind’Amour lamenting he “didn’t know what I was watching” in the first 20 minutes.

The closest thing to a highlight was Sebastian Aho's goal early in the second, one overturned on Florida's offsides review challenge.

Carolina managed three first-period shots, seven through two periods and finished with 17, the lowest of any regular-season or postseason game in Brind'Amour's seven seasons.

“It's tough to really describe what we need to do unless we play our best game or even close to it,” Hall said.

By the final minutes, there was another meager chant trying to take form.

“Canes in six! Canes in six!” a few fans yelled, trying to keep faith, before quickly fading.

Right now, anyway, the goal is to just get one.

AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

Florida Panthers' Eetu Luostarinen (27) looses control of the puck skating between Carolina Hurricanes' Sean Walker (26) and goaltender Frederik Andersen (31) during the first period of Game 2 of the NHL hockey Stanley Cup Eastern Conference finals in Raleigh, N.C., Thursday, May 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Karl DeBlaker)

Florida Panthers' Brad Marchand (63) takes the loose puck away from Carolina Hurricanes' Jack Roslovic (96) during the first period of Game 2 of the NHL hockey Stanley Cup Eastern Conference finals in Raleigh, N.C., Thursday, May 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Karl DeBlaker)

Carolina Hurricanes' Seth Jarvis (24) is prevented from shooting the puck by Florida Panthers' Gustav Forsling (42) as goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky (72) looks on during the second period of Game 2 of the NHL hockey Stanley Cup Eastern Conference finals in Raleigh, N.C., Thursday, May 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Karl DeBlaker)

Florida Panthers' Matthew Tkachuk (19) passes the puck around a sliding Carolina Hurricanes' Jaccob Slavin (74) during the third period of Game 2 of the NHL hockey Stanley Cup Eastern Conference finals in Raleigh, N.C., Thursday, May 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Karl DeBlaker)

Florida Panthers' Aleksander Barkov, right, celebrates his goal with Florida Panthers' Matthew Tkachuk (19) as Carolina Hurricanes goaltender Pyotr Kochetkov (52) looks on during the third period of Game 2 of the NHL hockey Stanley Cup Eastern Conference finals in Raleigh, N.C., Thursday, May 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Karl DeBlaker)

Carolina Hurricanes goaltender Frederik Andersen (31) turns as the puck shot by the Florida Panthers gets into the goal during the first period of Game 1 of the NHL hockey Stanley Cup Eastern Conference finals in Raleigh, N.C., Tuesday, May 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Karl DeBlaker)

Carolina Hurricanes' Jordan Staal (11) talks with an official about a call during the first period of Game 1 of the NHL hockey Stanley Cup Eastern Conference finals against the Florida Panthers in Raleigh, N.C., Tuesday, May 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Karl DeBlaker)

Carolina Hurricanes' Sebastian Aho (20) protests to an official during the second period of Game 1 of the NHL hockey Stanley Cup Eastern Conference finals against the Florida Panthers in Raleigh, N.C., Tuesday, May 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Karl DeBlaker)

Florida Panthers' Brad Marchand, left, is separated by officials from Carolina Hurricanes' Shayne Gostisbehere (4) during the third period of Game 1 of the NHL hockey Stanley Cup Eastern Conference finals in Raleigh, N.C., Tuesday, May 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Karl DeBlaker)

Carolina Hurricanes head coach Rod Brind'Amour watches from the bench during the first period of Game 1 of the NHL hockey Stanley Cup Eastern Conference finals against the Florida Panthers in Raleigh, N.C., Tuesday, May 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Karl DeBlaker)

U.S. President Donald Trump wants to own Greenland. He has repeatedly said the United States must take control of the strategically located and mineral-rich island, which is a semiautonomous region that's part of NATO ally Denmark.

Officials from Denmark, Greenland and the United States met Thursday in Washington and will meet again next week to discuss a renewed push by the White House, which is considering a range of options, including using military force, to acquire the island.

Trump said Friday he is going to do “something on Greenland, whether they like it or not.”

If it's not done “the easy way, we're going to do it the hard way," he said without elaborating what that could entail. In an interview Thursday, he told The New York Times that he wants to own Greenland because “ownership gives you things and elements that you can’t get from just signing a document.”

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has warned that an American takeover of Greenland would mark the end of NATO, and Greenlanders say they don't want to become part of the U.S.

This is a look at some of the ways the U.S. could take control of Greenland and the potential challenges.

Trump and his officials have indicated they want to control Greenland to enhance American security and explore business and mining deals. But Imran Bayoumi, an associate director at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, said the sudden focus on Greenland is also the result of decades of neglect by several U.S. presidents towards Washington's position in the Arctic.

The current fixation is partly down to “the realization we need to increase our presence in the Arctic, and we don’t yet have the right strategy or vision to do so,” he said.

If the U.S. took control of Greenland by force, it would plunge NATO into a crisis, possibly an existential one.

While Greenland is the largest island in the world, it has a population of around 57,000 and doesn't have its own military. Defense is provided by Denmark, whose military is dwarfed by that of the U.S.

It's unclear how the remaining members of NATO would respond if the U.S. decided to forcibly take control of the island or if they would come to Denmark's aid.

“If the United States chooses to attack another NATO country militarily, then everything stops,” Frederiksen has said.

Trump said he needs control of the island to guarantee American security, citing the threat from Russian and Chinese ships in the region, but “it's not true” said Lin Mortensgaard, an expert on the international politics of the Arctic at the Danish Institute for International Studies, or DIIS.

While there are probably Russian submarines — as there are across the Arctic region — there are no surface vessels, Mortensgaard said. China has research vessels in the Central Arctic Ocean, and while the Chinese and Russian militaries have done joint military exercises in the Arctic, they have taken place closer to Alaska, she said.

Bayoumi, of the Atlantic Council, said he doubted Trump would take control of Greenland by force because it’s unpopular with both Democratic and Republican lawmakers, and would likely “fundamentally alter” U.S. relationships with allies worldwide.

The U.S. already has access to Greenland under a 1951 defense agreement, and Denmark and Greenland would be “quite happy” to accommodate a beefed up American military presence, Mortensgaard said.

For that reason, “blowing up the NATO alliance” for something Trump has already, doesn’t make sense, said Ulrik Pram Gad, an expert on Greenland at DIIS.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told a select group of U.S. lawmakers this week that it was the Republican administration’s intention to eventually purchase Greenland, as opposed to using military force. Danish and Greenlandic officials have previously said the island isn't for sale.

It's not clear how much buying the island could cost, or if the U.S. would be buying it from Denmark or Greenland.

Washington also could boost its military presence in Greenland “through cooperation and diplomacy,” without taking it over, Bayoumi said.

One option could be for the U.S. to get a veto over security decisions made by the Greenlandic government, as it has in islands in the Pacific Ocean, Gad said.

Palau, Micronesia and the Marshall Islands have a Compact of Free Association, or COFA, with the U.S.

That would give Washington the right to operate military bases and make decisions about the islands’ security in exchange for U.S. security guarantees and around $7 billion of yearly economic assistance, according to the Congressional Research Service.

It's not clear how much that would improve upon Washington's current security strategy. The U.S. already operates the remote Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, and can bring as many troops as it wants under existing agreements.

Greenlandic politician Aaja Chemnitz told The Associated Press that Greenlanders want more rights, including independence, but don't want to become part of the U.S.

Gad suggested influence operations to persuade Greenlanders to join the U.S. would likely fail. He said that is because the community on the island is small and the language is “inaccessible.”

Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen summoned the top U.S. official in Denmark in August to complain that “foreign actors” were seeking to influence the country’s future. Danish media reported that at least three people with connections to Trump carried out covert influence operations in Greenland.

Even if the U.S. managed to take control of Greenland, it would likely come with a large bill, Gad said. That’s because Greenlanders currently have Danish citizenship and access to the Danish welfare system, including free health care and schooling.

To match that, “Trump would have to build a welfare state for Greenlanders that he doesn’t want for his own citizens,” Gad said.

Since 1945, the American military presence in Greenland has decreased from thousands of soldiers over 17 bases and installations to 200 at the remote Pituffik Space Base in the northwest of the island, Rasmussen said last year. The base supports missile warning, missile defense and space surveillance operations for the U.S. and NATO.

U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance told Fox News on Thursday that Denmark has neglected its missile defense obligations in Greenland, but Mortensgaard said that it makes “little sense to criticize Denmark,” because the main reason why the U.S. operates the Pituffik base in the north of the island is to provide early detection of missiles.

The best outcome for Denmark would be to update the defense agreement, which allows the U.S. to have a military presence on the island and have Trump sign it with a “gold-plated signature,” Gad said.

But he suggested that's unlikely because Greenland is “handy” to the U.S president.

When Trump wants to change the news agenda — including distracting from domestic political problems — “he can just say the word ‘Greenland' and this starts all over again," Gad said.

CORRECT THE ORDER OF SPEAKERS, FILE - Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, right, and Greenland's Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen, left, speak on April 27, 2025, in Marienborg, Denmark. (Mads Claus Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix via AP, File)

FILE - Danish military forces participate in an exercise with hundreds of troops from several European NATO members in the Arctic Ocean in Nuuk, Greenland, Sept. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi, File)

President Donald Trump listens as he was speaking with reporters while in flight on Air Force One, Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026, as returning to Joint Base Andrews, Md. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen arrives for a meeting of the Coalition of the Willing at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, Tuesday, Jan.6, 2026. (Yoan Valat, Pool photo via AP)

FILE - A plane carrying Donald Trump Jr. lands in Nuuk, Greenland, Jan. 7, 2025. (Emil Stach/Ritzau Scanpix via AP, file)