{"id":728195,"date":"2026-06-10T21:06:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T21:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/728195\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T21:06:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T21:06:09","slug":"hurricanes-look-to-take-care-of-business-at-home-in-game-5-of-cup-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/728195\/","title":{"rendered":"Hurricanes look to \u2018take care of business at home\u2019 in Game 5 of Cup Final"},"content":{"rendered":"

Slavin has played an important role this postseason. The gold medal winner with Team USA at the 2026 Olympic Winter Games plays on Carolina\u2019s top defense pair alongside Jalen Chatfield<\/a>, and is averaging 23:41 of ice time per game, which ranks second on the Hurricanes behind defenseman K’Andre Miller<\/a> (24:17).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Slavin has four assists in 17 games. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s one of our most valuable players for sure,\u201d Brind\u2019Amour said. \u201cThe offensive guys kind of tend to get all the attention, but I always value stopping a goal as much as scoring a goal. It\u2019s hard to equate it. You score a goal, you obviously score a goal, but how often does he make a play that defends one or prevents one, and that\u2019s equally important. We value him quite highly obviously.\u201d<\/p>\n

Slavin has been tasked with many of the tougher matchups, mainly against the Golden Knights\u2019 more skilled forwards.<\/p>\n

Vegas forward Mitch Marner<\/a>\u00a0leads the NHL in the playoffs with 29 points (10 goals, 19 assists) and is plus-15 in 20 games. Center Jack Eichel<\/a> has 20 points (two goals, 18 assists) in 20 games, and forward Brett Howden<\/a>\u00a0leads the League with 14 goals.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFor us, I think our biggest key is making sure we have all five guys back and forwards are backchecking, and they\u2019re doing a good job of that,\u201d Slavin said. \u201cAs a (defense) core, we have to make sure we\u2019re not letting guys get behind us and when we can take away time and space we have to, because they don\u2019t need much space at all to make some pretty dynamic plays. For us, it\u2019s just making sure we\u2019re really tight and being hard to play against.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carolina (53-22-7) finished first in the East this season but needed a strong performance Tuesday to avoid having its season on the brink of elimination. The Hurricanes held a 3-1 lead in the first period but allowed two goals in the second period. Captain Jordan Staal<\/a> scored a highlight-reel goal at 6:32 of the third period to put the Hurricanes back in front, and Nikolaj Ehlers<\/a>\u00a0scored into an empty net with 55 seconds left for the 5-3 final.<\/p>\n

Carolina has not lost two consecutive games since Jan.12-13. Game 6 will be at T-Mobile Arena on Sunday, and Game 7, if necessary, would be back home on June 17.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019ve just been able of doing a good job, win or lose, (focusing) on the next game and pouring into that,\u201d Brind\u2019Amour said. \u201cThe players have done a great job of preparing night in and night out, and that\u2019s what\u2019s probably given us the opportunity to have that happen.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Slavin has played an important role this postseason. The gold medal winner with Team USA at the 2026…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":728196,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-728195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=728195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/728196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=728195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=728195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=728195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}