RALEIGH, N.C. — The Carolina Hurricanes gathered at the blue line, the Stanley Cup sitting on a table a few feet away, and watched a championship banner rise to the rafters amid roaring home fans.
From the visiting bench, the Florida Panthers — the team that had won the Cup the two years before Carolina’s June breakthrough — patiently waited through that 15-minute ceremony to remind everyone that they’re fully back from an injury-hammered year.
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It added up to a tight-checking, goaltender-dominated and sometimes testy reunion between title winners with playoff history between them. And it took a blue-liner in Gustav Forsling to finally end it by blasting a...
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