The Carolina Hurricanes will aim for their second straight series sweep to start the Stanley Cup playoffs when they visit the Philadelphia Flyers in Game 4 of their Eastern Conference second-round matchup on Saturday evening.
The Hurricanes own a 3-0 lead in the best-of-seven series after winning the first two games in Raleigh, N.C., and then posting a 4-1 win in Game 3 on Thursday night in Philadelphia.
The seven straight playoff wins tied a franchise record set in 2006.
Hurricanes goalie Frederik Andersen had 18 saves in Game 3 to improve to 7-0 in the playoffs with two shutouts. He has a 1.02 goals-against average, a .957 save percentage and said preparation for this time of year begins on the first day of training camp.
“We establish how we want to play right away,” he said. “So much is second nature to everyone.”
Carolina was locked in a 1-1 tie with the Flyers on Thursday when Jalen Chatfield scored short-handed at 15:59 of the second period to give the Hurricanes a 2-1 lead. They cemented the win with two more unanswered goals in the third.
“Tonight was a bit of a messy game until the third,” Andersen said. “We kind of just got back on our game a little bit and, obviously, scored a few to close it out.”
Jordan Staal scored his first goal of the 2026 playoffs for Carolina and contributed an assist on Chatfield’s goal.
Andersen said their team captain the past seven seasons leads in a number of ways.
“If you want to see how we want to play, that’s the model right there,” Andersen said of Staal. “He’s such a strong skater, such a strong body out there, and he doesn’t try to do extra. He’s just trying to be reliable and be a calm presence in the room, too. I think that’s where he’s underrated.”
The Flyers have struggled on the power play throughout the playoffs, but especially against the Hurricanes.
They went 0-for-5 with the man-advantage in Game 3, including a 5-on-3 that lasted 1:15 in the second period, and the power-play unit surrendered the short-handed goal to Chatfield. Philadelphia fell to 1-for-16 with the man-advantage in the series and 3-for-33 in the playoffs.
“There’s reads and plays you’ve got to make to be on the power play,” Flyers coach Rick Tocchet said. “In all fairness, we got some guys that are playing power play that probably wouldn’t play a lot of minutes on a power play, and we’re trying to get these guys to understand certain things.”
Part of the problem is the Flyers have been without their leading goal scorer from the regular season, Owen Tippett, who is day-to-day with an unspecified injury.
He has been practicing with the Flyers but has yet to appear in the series.
Philadelphia also lost center Noah Cates to a lower-body in Game 2 and he won’t return this series.
The Flyers were up 3-0 in their first-round series against the Pittsburgh Penguins, lost Games 4 and 5, then closed it out at home in Game 6.
They know anything can happen.
“We’ve got nothing to lose,” Flyers defenseman Jamie Drysdale said. “We were just in a series where it was the opposite.”
