Hurricanes core rewarded with Stanley Cup after years of playoff heartbreak

LAS VEGAS -- Rod Brind’Amour said he still remembers the day.

He had just been named head coach of the Carolina Hurricanes on May 8, 2018, and he was meeting with forward Jordan Martinook, who had been acquired by the team in a trade with the Arizona Coyotes five days earlier.

“I remember grabbing him, had lunch with him, and I'm like, ‘Hey, we're going to try to build something,'” Brind’Amour said. “The kind of player you are, the personality, and this kind of player you are, the personality. This is what we're building around. And he was like ‘yeah.’”

That same offseason, forward Andrei Svechnikov would be selected with the No. 2 pick in the 2018 NHL Draft, joining forward Jordan Staal, forward Sebastian Aho and defenseman Jaccob Slavin as the core of team that would travel a long, hard and sometimes disheartening road to eventually the win the Stanley Cup.

And that’s why, of all the Hurricanes who hoisted the Stanley Cup on Sunday after a 3-0 win against the Vegas Golden Knights in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final at T-Mobile Arena, those five maybe had the most appreciation for all that the Hurricanes had been through to get to this point.

“We battled so hard for this over seven years,” said Svechnikov on the ice in Las Vegas. “We’ve been kicked out from playoffs, and that was devastating for us every year, and it was hard.

“I don’t really have words but it’s the best feeling ever.”

It hasn’t always been like that.

Before Brind’Amour was named coach, Carolina hadn’t qualified for the playoffs for nine consecutive seasons.

Once Brind’Amour took over, the Hurricanes reached the playoffs and won at least one series in each of their eight seasons since, including four trips to the Eastern Conference Final (2019, 2023, 2025, 2026).

But before this season, it always ended early and painfully.

They were throttled in the Eastern Conference Final by the eventual Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers in five games last season, and swept by Florida in the same round in 2023.

In 2024, they lost in the second round the New York Rangers, and as well as 2022, when they blew a 2-0 and 3-2 series lead.

But this year, they would not be denied, sweeping the Ottawa Senators and Philadelphia Flyers in the first two rounds, then defeating the Montreal Canadiens in five games in the Eastern Conference Final before winning the final three games of this series after falling behind 2-1.

“It’s unbelievable,” said Aho, who was selected by Carolina in the second round (No. 35) of the 2015 NHL Draft and made his debut in 2016-17. “It’s such a long wait. We’ve been knocked down there and it’s not always easy to get up, but now it feels pretty good to be a champion.”

Besides Staal, who came to the Hurricanes on June 12, 2012, the longest-tenured Hurricanes player is Slavin, who was selected by Carolina in the fourth round (No. 120) of the 2012 NHL Draft and made his NHL debut in the 2015-16 season.

Staal has played 972 regular-season games for Carolina, Slavin 784, followed by Aho (756), Svechnikov (557) and Martinook (550). It was a combined total of 3,619 regular-season games without a championship before Sunday.

“I couldn’t imagine a more deserving group,” said forward Seth Jarvis, who made his debut with Carolina in the 2021-22 season. “They were here during some of the dark times in our organization’s history and they brought us out of it.

“They’re the backbone of this team and to win it with them now, it’s incredible.”

Staal, Slavin and Aho were with Brind’Amour even before he became head coach. Brind’Amour, who won the Cup as captain of the Hurricanes in 2006, was an assistant for seven seasons, under Kirk Muller (2011-14) and Bill Peters (2014-2018) before replacing Peters in 2018.

“'Roddy,' unbelievable coach, Jordan the captain, Fishy (Aho), Marty, Svech, I mean all these guys I’ve been with my whole career and I can’t be happier for them,” Slavin said. “It’s just amazing to do with people that you love.”

Those bonds were tested over the years by playoff heartbreak after playoff heartbreak, and all the players and Brind’Amour admitted there were times they were unsure a night like Sunday would ever happen.

“You always have doubt,” Brind’Amour said. “I mean, it creeps in all the time. Especially, I felt like we had with this team could have done this many, many times, but something just goes off the rails a little.”

Martinook said what didn’t kill the Hurricanes made them stronger.

“I wish we would have won it every year,” Martinook said, “but I think it takes failure to succeed sometimes, and over the years, there was a lot of where we thought we had the teams and we were right there, and you wanted it so bad.”

And they finally got it, a feat Staal said is extra special because of how long him, Brind’Amour and the other core players had to wait.

“This core group, I love those guys,” Staal said, the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP next to him in the interview room. “And they compete, and they're family, and to keep grinding, to keep pushing and get deep down again and not get it and regroup and go again, go again and finally pull this off, it’s a dream come true.

“It’s indescribable.”