The Carolina Hurricanes won their Eastern Conference Final. Now they can play for the Stanley Cup for the first time in two decades.

Taylor Hall, Logan Stankoven and Eric Robinson scored in the first period. The Hurricanes beat the Montreal Canadiens 6-1 on Friday night. The game ended a five-game series. The Eastern Conference’s top seed will play Vegas for the Cup.

Jackson Blake and Shayne Gostisbehere scored in the second period and made the Hurricanes lead 5-0 before the last period. Seth Jarvis scored into an empty net with 3:41 left. Frederik Andersen kept a shutout until the middle of the third period.

Carolina won the first two playoff rounds. Then they lost Game 1 to the Canadiens. After a long break, they won four games in a row. They also scored 10 goals in a row, starting with Andrei Svechnikov’s overtime goal in Game 3. Montreal finally scored with Cole Caufield’s power-play goal at 10:50 of the third.

The Hurricanes were the first team to reach the Stanley Cup Final with only one loss since 1983, SportRadar said. They were also the only team to do this since the league used best-of-seven series in all four postseason rounds in 1987.

It was a very important moment for the team. They had played in the playoffs for 8 years under Rod Brind’Amour. The Hurricanes were often a strong team in the East, but they came into this series after going 1-12 in the Eastern Conference Final under Brind’Amour. They lost to Boston in 2019 and Florida in 2023, and then they lost to the Panthers in 5 games last year.

But they were hurt by those old playoff losses. With their good players and strong team, the Hurricanes were ready to try again for their third chance at the Cup since the former Hartford Whalers moved to North Carolina before the 1997-98 season.

The last time the Hurricanes were here? Brind’Amour was the captain of the team that won the Cup in a seven-game series against Edmonton in 2006.

After the loss in Game 1, the Hurricanes took control of the series from the young Canadiens. The Canadiens had won Game 7 road games against Tampa Bay and Buffalo in the first two rounds. They won two 3-2 overtime games, then won Game 4 in a 4-0 road game on Wednesday.

Carolina was playing well and stopping the Canadiens in their end, and they were stopping many chances the Canadiens had.

In the middle of the second period, Hurricanes fans shouted "Olé! Olé! Olé! Olé!" and Carolina was winning 4-0. In the last two minutes, they shouted "We want the Cup! We want the Cup!" as the Hurricanes finished the game.