SUNRISE, Fla. (AP) — Go back to June 1, 2006. Rod Brind'Amour was a captain then; he's a coach now. Logan Stankoven was 3 years old then; he's a budding star now. And in those days, when people talked about Cam Ward, they meant the goalie for the Carolina Hurricanes, not the quarterback for the Miami Hurricanes.
That was also the last day on which Carolina won an Eastern Conference finals game.
Until Monday, that is.
It's over. Not the season. The streak. Carolina's 15-game streak of consecutive losses in the East finals ended Monday night, with the Hurricanes beating the Florida Panthers 3-0 in Game 4 of their matchup. It was Carolina's first win in the East finals since June 1, 2006 against Buffalo, a night where Brind'Amour — then the Hurricanes' captain — got the game-winning goal.
“You know what? I didn't even think about that," Brind'Amour said. “But that's nice.”
Carolina's winning goal Monday came from Stankoven, someone whose future Brind'Amour raves about. Stankoven has no idea of the circumstances surrounding what had been Carolina's most recent East finals win before Monday; considering he was a toddler when it happened, that's understandable.
The odds of overcoming a 3-0 series deficit are overwhelmingly slim. A 3-1 deficit is no picnic either, but the Hurricanes at least know now that they can beat the Panthers in the playoffs.
“It’s just what you can do," Stankoven said. "You start with one and go from there. We just try and preach about winning a period and going from there. And I think it was nice to get the lead tonight as well and play on our toes instead of on our heels.”
Under Brind'Amour, the Hurricanes have gone to the playoffs in seven consecutive seasons but have no Stanley Cups — or even Stanley Cup Final trips — to show for it. The seven straight playoff berths is the fourth-longest active run in the NHL, behind only Toronto’s nine, Colorado’s eight and Tampa Bay’s eight. The Lightning have two Cups in that span, the Avalanche have one.
This looked like it could have been the team to change the fortunes for Carolina. The Hurricanes rolled through the first two rounds, ousting New Jersey in five games in Round 1 and then needing only five more games to eliminate NHL all-time scoring king Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals in Round 2. They were a top 10 team this season in goals scored, a top 10 team this season in fewest goals allowed, had a pair of eight-game winning streaks this season and outscored the Devils and Capitals 34-18 in the first two rounds.
Momentum was building until the first three games against Florida. Now going home for Game 5, the Hurricanes still have a chance.
And streak talk, thankfully from Brind'Amour's perspective, will end.
“I mean, it means like nothing to these guys because half of them weren't here, but it’s been a story," Brind'Amour said. "So, yeah, it’s nice to not have to talk about that.”
AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl
Carolina Hurricanes head coach Rod Brind'Amour stands during a timeout during the third period in Game 4 of the NHL hockey Stanley Cup Eastern Conference finals against the Florida Panthers, Monday, May 26, 2025, in Sunrise, Fla. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
JERUSALEM (AP) — Over two dozen families from one of the few remaining Palestinian Bedouin villages in the central West Bank have packed up and fled their homes in recent days, saying harassment by Jewish settlers living in unauthorized outposts nearby has grown unbearable.
The village, Ras Ein el-Auja, was originally home to some 700 people from more than 100 families that have lived there for decades.
Twenty-six families already left on Thursday, scattering across the territory in search of safer ground, say rights groups. Several other families were packing up and leaving on Sunday.
“We have been suffering greatly from the settlers. Every day, they come on foot, or on tractors, or on horseback with their sheep into our homes. They enter people’s homes daily,” said Nayef Zayed, a resident, as neighbors took down sheep pens and tin structures.
Israel's military and the local settler governing body in the area did not respond to requests for comment.
Other residents pledged to stay put for the time being. That makes them some of the last Palestinians left in the area, said Sarit Michaeli, international director at B’Tselem, an Israeli rights group helping the residents.
She said that mounting settler violence has already emptied neighboring Palestinian hamlets in the dusty corridor of land stretching from Ramallah in the West to Jericho, along the Jordanian border, in the east.
The area is part of the 60% of the West Bank that has remained under full Israeli control under interim peace accords signed in the 1990s. Since the war between Israel and Hamas erupted in October 2023, over 2,000 Palestinians — at least 44 entire communities — have been expelled by settler violence in the area, B'Tselem says.
The turning point for the village came in December, when settlers put up an outpost about 50 meters (yards) from Palestinian homes on the northwestern flank of the village, said Michaeli and Sam Stein, an activist who has been living in the village for a month.
Settlers strolled easily through the village at night. Sheep and laundry went missing. International activists had to begin escorting children to school to keep them safe.
“The settlers attack us day and night, they have displaced us, they harass us in every way” said Eyad Isaac, another resident. “They intimidate the children and women.”
Michaeli said she’s witnessed settlers walk around the village at night, going into homes to film women and children and tampering with the village’s electricity.
The residents said they call the police frequently to ask for help — but it seldom arrives. Settlement expansion has been promoted by successive Israeli governments over nearly six decades. But Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government, which has placed settler leaders in senior positions, has made it a top priority.
That growth has been accompanied by a spike in settler violence, much of it carried out by residents of unauthorized outposts. These outposts often begin with small farms or shepherding that are used to seize land, say Palestinians and anti-settlement activists. United Nations officials warn the trend is changing the map of the West Bank, entrenching Israeli presence in the area.
Some 500,000 Israelis have settled in the West Bank since Israel captured the territory, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, in the 1967 Mideast war. Their presence is viewed by most of the international community as illegal and a major obstacle to peace. The Palestinians seek all three areas for a future state.
For now, displaced families of the village have dispersed between other villages near the city of Jericho and near Hebron further south, said residents. Some sold their sheep and are trying to move into the cities.
Others are just dismantling their structures without knowing where to go.
"Where will we go? There’s nowhere. We’re scattered,” said Zayed, the resident, “People’s situation is bad. Very bad.”
An Israeli settler herds his flock near his outpost beside the Palestinian village of Ras Ein al-Auja in the West Bank, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
A Palestinian resident of Ras Ein al-Auja village, West Bank burns trash, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
Palestinian children play in the West Bank village of Ras Ein al-Auja, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
Palestinian residents of Ras Ein al-Auja village, West Bank pack up their belongings and prepare to leave their homes after deciding to flee mounting settler violence, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
Palestinian residents of Ras Ein al-Auja village, West Bank pack up their belongings and prepare to leave their homes after deciding to flee mounting settler violence, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
