Hurricanes:4-2 to win Stanley Cup First Round against No. 4 Nashville Predators; 36-12-8, 80 points in regular season
Lightning:4-2 to win Stanley Cup First Round against No. 2 Florida Panthers; 36-17-3, 75 points in regular season
Season series:CAR 4-3-1; TBL 4-3-1
Game 1: Sunday (5 p.m. ET; NBCSN, SN, TVAS)
The Hurricanes and Lightning will play in the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time.
Tampa Bay, which won the Stanley Cup last season, defeated the No. 2 Panthers in the NHL's first All-Florida playoff series in the first round, winning 4-0 at home in Game 6 on Wednesday to complete its fifth consecutive playoff series win, all in six games or fewer.
Lightning forward Nikita Kucherov led all skaters in the series with 11 points (three goals, eight assists) after missing the entire regular season recovering from hip surgery Dec. 29.
"I'm not impressed anymore, it's just how good he is," Lightning forward Pat Maroon said of Kucherov. "It's unbelievable. He works so hard at his craft and what he does. The way he works, his work ethic when he was trying to come back, working on his game and the little things he does, I'm not shocked or surprised by his performance in this series."
Carolina advanced with back-to-back come-from-behind overtime wins against the Predators, 3-2 in Game 5 and 4-3 in Game 6.
Each time they were down going into the third period before scoring to force overtime. Forward Jordan Staal scored the winner in Game 5 and forward Sebastian Aho scored the series-clinching goal in Game 6.
The Hurricanes have won four of six playoff series since 2019. They defeated the defending Stanley Cup champion Washington Capitals in the first round in 2019, when they reached the Eastern Conference Final.
"You knew if we got through this [first round] series, whether it was Florida or Tampa, for me, it was going to be the next best team in the League," Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour said. "Either one, pick 'em. Stanley Cup champs, or I thought Florida played great all year. We're getting the Stanley Cup champs. We know what we're up against. We're going to have to be as good as we can to have a chance against these guys, especially now that they've got their full group back. It's a great challenge for us. We'll give it all we've got."
The Hurricanes won two of the last three regular-season games against the Lightning (2-0-1), who won three in a row against Carolina from Feb. 22-25.