RALEIGH — Gustav Forsling blasted a one-timer past Brandon Bussi with 4.3 seconds left in overtime to lift the Florida Panthers to a 1-0 win over the Carolina Hurricanes in Raleigh, spoiling Carolina's Stanley Cup banner-raising night in a season opener between the NHL's last two champions.
Forsling's winner came from inside the blue line off a feed from Carter Verhaeghe and zipped past forward Taylor Hall to beat Bussi glove side just before a shootout. The tight-checking, goaltender-dominated game saw the teams go a combined 0 for 13 on the power play. "Playoff-style hockey," Forsling said. "That felt like a playoff game to me. It was awesome, really fun."
Jacob Markstrom made 15 saves in his Florida debut in the crease anchored by Sergei Bobrovsky during the title runs, including a stop on Carolina top-line center Sebastian Aho on a short-handed breakaway in the second period. Forsling also helped preserve the shutout by blocking Jackson Blake's shot in the crease on a four-on-one rush late in the second. "I thought we played a great game — everyone, the whole lineup," Markstrom said. "All four lines and all six D played really good, making my job a lot easier." Florida coach Paul Maurice kept his team on the bench to watch Carolina's 15-minute ceremony. "You get a chance to see what you want so bad," Maurice said. "We think it's really important that the teams respect each other for those achievements, whether it's an individual player hitting a milestone or certainly a Stanley Cup. They've earned the right to have as long of a ceremony as they wanted, and it was well done."
Bussi made 19 saves for Carolina and nearly forced a shootout after posting a shutout in the Hurricanes' Cup-clinching win against Vegas on June 14. The waiver-wire standout is now the top starter after Frederik Andersen's departure in free agency. "It was far enough out I should kind of found it, for some reason I didn't get a good visual on it," Bussi said. "And it's 4 seconds left, trying to get to a shootout. I think on my standards it's a bad goal." Carolina coach Rod Brind'Amour said rust showed despite returning a largely intact roster. "I think it's a good game for us," Brind'Amour said. "The offensive guys got, 'OK, well now we've got to get going here with the way the game is played.' Like I said, it wasn't a lot of room and the little plays you normally make, we weren't making them tonight. Or seeing them."
The NHL said it marked the third time in its modern era since 1943-44 that the two previous Cup winners met in a season-opening game, after 1962-63 and 2019-20. The Panthers had reached the Stanley Cup Final for three straight years and won in 2024 and 2025, twice eliminating the Hurricanes in the Eastern Conference Final, before injuries derailed last season after captain Aleksander Barkov suffered a knee injury to open preseason camp. Florida returns with Barkov back, Matthew Tkachuk joined by brother Brady as an offseason addition and Markstrom taking over the crease, while Carolina is without Andersen and still without top-line forward Seth Jarvis recovering from shoulder surgery and third-pair defenseman Alexander Nikishin unsigned as a restricted free agent.