Rod Brind'Amour knows a thing or two about how Jordan Staal is feeling. Now the Carolina Hurricanes' coach, Brind'Amour was their captain when they won the Stanley Cup two decades ago, and now Staal wears the “C.”
Before the final against Vegas started, Brind'Amour was clear about one thing.
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“We’re not here today without Jordan Staal,” he said. “I can promise you that. We’re very lucky. And as a coach, you’re super fortunate to have a guy like that be your leader.”
The 37-year-old Staal led the Hurricanes to the second championship in franchise history by being the two-way shutdown center and faceoff ace he has been his entire NHL career. By elevating his game and leading them in goals with six in the final against the Golden Knights, Staal won the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP.
He is the oldest player to win the honor.
“He’s always really good, but yeah, he’s stepped it up at such a pivotal time,” teammate Seth Jarvis said. “It’s incredible to watch, and it’s so much fun playing with him and being around him.”
Staal is the longest-tenured player in the organization. He was also the only player on the roster with a Cup ring, from winning with the Penguins in 2009.
The 17 years in between is the longest gap between championships, breaking the record of 16 held by Chris Chelios.
“That’s a lot of years," Staal said. “It’s amazing. This is something I’ve been going after ever since we got the first one. You want to win it again and again and again. What a feeling.”
Staal joined the Hurricanes in 2012 in a trade from Pittsburgh on his wedding day. His first half-dozen years with them passed without a postseason appearance.
“I don’t want to say that the losing that he had to do for four, five years when he got here might have fueled him even more, but I think it did,” fellow veteran Jordan Martinook said. “The fact that he’s seen some pretty dark days here and then to be on the other side of it ... he stuck through it the whole time.”
The past seven seasons, Staal and the Hurricanes made the playoffs but failed to reach the final. He became captain in the middle of that stretch in 2020, taking on a role once filled by Brind'Amour from 2005-10 and older brother Eric from 2010-16.
Staal took on the weight of those premature exits.
“Each scar, each moment just drives a hunger even deeper into you,” Staal said. “Being a part of this core and all the scars that we’ve gone through just brings that care factor for each other that we want it for each other that much more.”
Staal has never gotten the Selke Trophy as the league's best defensive forward, but he has been a finalist and this run shows why. He won more than 56% of his faceoffs and is so valuable on draws that he begins power plays just to get the Hurricanes the puck.
“People got to see what I’ve know for forever — what kind of player he is, what kind of leader he is,” Brind'Amour said. "And here we go, he’s finally rewarded.”
Told of Brind'Amour's pre-series comment that the team would not have gotten this far without him, Staal praised his coach and downplayed changing anything in his game. The two shared a long hug on the ice in the moments after the Game 6 win.
“I’m just being me,” Staal said. “I’m not really anyone different. But just my day-to-day presence is showing up and working. That’s all I’ve done since I got here in Carolina, and being consistent with that must have been enough.”
The offensive outburst against Vegas put Staal over the top for the Conn Smythe after it looked like Logan Stankoven and Taylor Hall were Carolina's front-runners. He never scored 30 goals in a season, but his six in the final put him in the record books with the likes of Hall of Famers Mario Lemieux and Mike Bossy.
“I’m not really surprised,” Brind'Amour said. “You take the goals away, it’d be the same impact. It’s just added that extra element.”
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AP Sports Writer Aaron Beard in Raleigh, North Carolina, contributed to this report.
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AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl