RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The on-ice celebration was underway for the Carolina Hurricanes after securing their first trip to the Stanley Cup Final in two decades. Rod Brind'Amour hugged and congratulated his players, all while reminding them there was another series ahead.
Then came veteran forward Jordan Martinook.
“All right, Marty, you got us here,” Brind'Amour told him.
“One more,” Martinook replied, on cue. “Yep, one more.”
It took eight seasons under
Brind'Amour — the captain on Carolina's Cup winner in 2006 — to punch through an Eastern Conference Final roadblock by closing out the Montreal Canadiens in five games Friday night. So this moment was one to savor particularly for five players — Martinook, captain Jordan Staal, forwards Sebastian Aho and Andrei Svechnikov, and defenseman Jaccob Slavin — who have been here through the pain of three previous exits in this round going back to 2019 in Brind'Amour's debut as head coach.
“It's hard to really describe,” Staal said as he sat at his locker. "It's been a lot of grinding, a lot of ups and downs. ... I'm just so happy to be where we're at and just excited for the opportunity ahead.”
Carolina's rise began with Brind'Amour being elevated to head coach in 2018 after seven seasons as an assistant. At the time, the Hurricanes were mired in a nine-year playoff drought.
They haven't missed the postseason since. And the quintet has been there throughout that Brind'Amour-led climb:
— The Hurricanes acquired Staal from Pittsburgh during the 2012 NHL Entry Draft. He won the Cup with the Penguins in 2009 — which included a sweep of the Hurricanes in the Eastern Conference Final when Brind'Amour was still a player — but had toiled through six of Carolina's postseason-less seasons.
— Slavin was a 2012 fourth-round pick who had played three seasons with Carolina before becoming one of the NHL's best defense-first blue liners.
— Aho was a 2015 second-round pick and had played two seasons with Carolina on his way to developing into the Hurricanes' top-line center.
— The Hurricanes acquired Martinook from Arizona days after Brind’Amour took over, adding a player who would join Staal on a strong checking line.
— And the Hurricanes drafted Svechnikov with the No. 2 overall pick a month after Brind'Amour's promotion, with Svechnikov now a physical fixture on Aho's wing.
Results were immediate. Carolina took out the reigning Cup champion Washington Capitals in a seven-game first-round series, then went on to make an unexpected trip to the Eastern Conference Final before being swept by Boston.
It was a start, both of sustained success and recurring frustration.
The Hurricanes returned to the Eastern Conference Final again in 2023, this time with home-ice advantage against the Florida Panthers. But they were swept again by four one-goal margins, including a four-overtime epic in Game 1.
Then last year, the Hurricanes returned for a rematch that quickly went awry. They lost Games 1 and 2 in a performance that frustrated a normally rowdy and exuberant home crowd, fell into an 0-3 series hole and exited in five games.
That dropped Carolina to 1-12 in that round under Brind'Amour, unable to turn years of consistent regular-season success into a breakthrough playoff moment. It's all part of “scar tissue” Martinook mentioned Friday night, shared by the quintet with Brind'Amour as well as holdovers like assistant coach Jeff Daniels and longtime video coach Chris Huffine.
“They’ve really grinded out and did it the right way,” Brind'Amour said, "and took a lot of, I think, flack for getting this far and not getting past it. Unduly. I don't think that was right, because they played as hard as they could. ... They gave it everything they had, and that’s all you can ask.
“We got better this year, we added some pieces that made us better to get us to this point. But as a coach, you watch these guys every day, there's nobody luckier than me to have these guys, the way they approach their business on a daily basis, not just now.”
That was never more on display than against Montreal.
The Hurricanes swept Ottawa and Philadelphia in the first two rounds, securing an 11-day between-rounds break — the longest in the playoffs in more than a century. They emerged with a horrid start against the Canadiens, who pounced for four first-period goals in a 6-2 win that harkened back to past conference-final troubles.
Instead of stumbling, the playoff-tested Hurricanes ascended.
Nikolaj Ehlers gave them a 3-2 overtime win in Game 2. They won Game 3 by the same OT score on Svechnikov's road winner, with Aho screening Jakub Dobes at the top of the crease. And they got to their smothering game Staal likened to a “machine” from there, winning 4-0 on the road before Friday's 6-1 home win.
That made Carolina the first team to reach the Stanley Cup Final with only one loss since 1983, according to SportRadar, and first to do so since the league went to best-of-seven series in all four postseason rounds in 1987.
Now comes a date with Vegas for the Cup, a rare new experience for Carolina's holdovers in this long run.
“I feel like it was more maybe you guys talking about, 'Oh, this is the Eastern Conference Final, can't go past it,'” Aho told reporters in the locker room afterward. “I thought the room was definitely very confident in what we can do. But yeah, it feels good to play for the Cup now.”
___
AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl
