Wayne Gretzky was in the Dallas Stars locker room congratulating them after they advanced to their third consecutive Western Conference finals, where they will face the franchise with which “The Great One” was a four-time Stanley Cup champion.

“He said we’re going up against a pretty good team now,” Stars captain Jamie Benn said Tuesday, the day before hosting Game 1 against Edmonton. “And I had to ask him who he was cheering for. It felt right, and he didn’t answer, obviously.”

Benn said it was “pretty cool” that Gretzky visited the Stars after their 2-1 overtime win Saturday night over Winnipeg that set up a West final rematch against the Oilers.

Edmonton won the West final over the Stars in six games last year, then lost to Florida in a seven-game Stanley Cup Final.

“What a great honor to have the greatest player of all time come down after the game and say hello,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said.

Gretzky told the Stars he had so much fun watching them play, and that they were now going to play “one of the greatest teams ever.”

DeBoer was on the coaching staff for Canada for the team’s 4 Nations Face-Off title earlier this year, and during that period got to spend some time with Gretzky.

“Extra special. That’s my era. That’s the guy we all grew up watching,” DeBoer said. “He’s a special guy when you get him 1-on-1 or in a coach’s room or behind the scenes. You can see his passion for the game. He can sit and talk hockey and tell stories all night.”

Gretzky was part of four Stanley Cup titles in a five-season span in the 1980s with Edmonton. He was the NHL career-leading goal scorer with 894 goals until Alex Ovechkin passed him on April 6, but still has the most points (2,857) and assists (1,963).

So when meeting the Stars and DeBoer, did Gretzky say anything that would create headlines in Edmonton, like saying he was hoping Dallas would win?

“He didn’t. He would never say that and I would never put him in that spot,” DeBoer said. “He was very respectful of our group and the job we’d done to that point. I think we all understand his allegiance to Edmonton and appreciate that, so he never went beyond that.”

PANTHERS WIN OPENER 5-2 OVER HURRICANES

Carter Verhaeghe and Aaron Ekblad scored two tone-setting first-period goals while Sergei Bobrovsky remained strong in net as the reigning Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers beat the Carolina Hurricanes 5-2 in the s opener of their Eastern Conference final series in Raleigh, N.C.

A.J. Greer added a goal by finishing off a perfect 2-on-1 transition chance in the second period for Florida, while Sam Bennett added a third-period score that erased any lingering doubt — only to see Eetu Luostarinen added another one late to make it 5-1 and keep pouring it on.

Bobrovsky held up with 31 saves, including during a stretch in which the Panthers failed to get a shot on goal for more than 15 minutes spanning the second intermission.

It came 48 hours after the Panthers had beaten Toronto in a road Game 7 to advance and set up a rematch of the Eastern final from two years ago.

Florida swept that one with four one-goal margins, including Game 1 in four overtimes. And just as before, the Panthers have immediately ripped home-ice advantage from a team that was 5-0 at home in these playoffs.

Sebastian Aho tallied Carolina’s lone score when the outcome was in doubt, with Seth Jarvis’ pass banging off Aho’s right skate to slide under Bobrovsky in the dying seconds of the first to make it 2-1. But Florida got Greer’s finish off a backhand feed from Niko Mikkola to beat Frederik Andersen to push the margin back to two goals early in the second.

Bruins give Sweeney a 2-year extension

The Boston Bruins signed general manager Don Sweeney to a two-year contract extension, trusting him to rebuild the roster after the team missed the playoffs this season for the first time since 2016.

The move comes a month after team president Cam Neely said he needed to think about whether to keep Sweeney around after a decade in which the Bruins have seen unprecedented regular-season success followed largely by playoff flops. Sweeney fired coach Jim Montgomery, who led Boston to NHL records of 65 wins and 135 points in 2022-23, in November, then sold off the roster at the trade deadline when it failed to respond under interim Joe Sacco.

“Don has navigated a disappointing period for our club with conviction, purpose, and a clear vision toward the future of the Boston Bruins,” Neely said. “He made difficult decisions around the trade deadline with the confidence they will pay dividends as we craft a path back to contention.”

In 10 seasons under Sweeney, the Bruins have a 458-233-91 regular-season record, with eight playoff berths.