Hurricanes end monumental losing streak, avoid sweep by Panthers

The Carolina Hurricanes will not be swept by the Florida Panthers, but they still have a long, uphill fight

The good news is they never have to talk about their 15-game conference finals losing streak ever again

That inglorious streak dated back to 2009, and it felt like a heavyweight to carry

in addition to having to battle the defending champion Panthers. Even if none of the current Hurricane players were on the team when it began

Canes goaltender Frederick Anderson helped the effort with a 20-save shutout. We're a proud team, of course

I'm not going to dive into too much of what we talked about, but I think we knew we haven't really played our best hockey

for that much of these first three games, and that was really our focus

just to try to put our best game at them and see how it went

It went well, considering. As for the streak, well, it's so old

Carolina captain Jordan Stahl was on the Pittsburgh Penguins team that got it started 16 years ago

There's a lot of character in this room and a lot of guys that didn't want to go home

We know we have a large, huge hill to climb here and we've got a great team on the other side

that is going to come back with a better effort, and we know that. Monday night game was a tight 1 affair until two late empty net goals gave the Canes some breathing room A stark contrast from the first three games of the series when the Panthers just skated right over Carolina

outscoring them by a combined 16-4. Head coach Rod Brindamore says the job is far from over

We know that they're not going away. This is not even a blimp on the radar for them is how

they're looking at it but we have to keep keep the gas down or keep the hammer down and give us

give us a chance again. But do they really have a chance? Only four teams in NHL history have ever

come back from a three nothing series deficit to advance. Here's the exclusive club the last team

to do it the Los Angeles Kings 11 years ago. No one has done it against the defending champs and

the Panthers do not want to be on the wrong side of history. Head coach Paul Maurice doesn't want

to give the Hurricanes any more hope. And credit to them, I haven't been nearly as down on that

hockey team as you find people have been over the last three games, and then I won't be as down on

my team tonight. They were good. They had good sticks. They had good quickness. Game five is

Wednesday night in Raleigh. The winner of this series takes on the winner of the Western Conference

final between Edmonton and Dallas. The Oilers are up two games to one in that series with game four

Tuesday night in Edmonton. For Straight Arrow News, I'm Chris Francis