Staal cements 'legendary status' with performance for Hurricanes in Cup Final

LAS VEGAS --  Jordan Staal was not going to be denied. He had done his interviews, skating from microphone to microphone, finishing up with a crew from "Good Morning America," answering their questions thoughtfully, politely, diligently.

But now he had another mission. His family, like the rest of the families of the Carolina Hurricanes, were filtering onto the ice at T-Mobile Arena through the Zamboni entrance, bound for their husbands and sons, fathers and brothers. Bound for their champions.

His kids found him first, jumping into his arms, his elder daughter making a valiant effort to steal his Stanley Cup champion hat, before Staal reclaimed it. His dad followed, then his mom, then his brothers.

Eric got to him first, his right arm reaching around as he opened his mouth to yell. Marc came next, and Jared third, the four brothers embracing and screaming and pounding each other’s chests all at the same time.

“Legendary status, right?” said Eric Staal, who himself lifted the Cup 20 years ago in 2006, the first and only other time the Hurricanes have won it. “... 'Jordo' at the front of it, it’s super, super, I don’t know, unbelievable. It really is. It’s just kind of one of those storybook kind of things. He was a horse. He was unreal, the whole playoffs, the whole year, and the whole last however many years he’s been there. He’s just grinded from Day 1. He deserves it.”

This was not the first time Jordan Staal had lifted the Stanley Cup, not the first time he had celebrated a championship. The first time he did so, back in 2009 with the Pittsburgh Penguins, he was just 20 years old, in his third season in the National Hockey League, a player with an entire career ahead of him.

This time, in 2026, after the Hurricanes defeated the Vegas Golden Knights 3-0 in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final on Sunday, it was the same, and so, so different.

This time, he was also named the winner of the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player to his team in the playoffs.

“It was still just as light,” Staal said of lifting the Cup. “My goodness, what an amazing feeling. Different, though. For how long I’ve been here and grinded through, to be able to build this culture and build this team and be a part of that group and be so close so many times and never get it and keep grinding, keep going, keep going, it’s a dream come true, by far.”

The beard is bushier than it was back then, in 2009, fuller and longer. The face is weathered, the smile lines deepened. There is a weariness to a 37-year-old that a 20-year-old cannot even imagine.

But the joy was the same.

“You’re just constantly trying to push yourself, push yourself to get here, this moment,” Staal said. “I can’t believe it. There’s nothing better.”

He had been working for this for so long, since that championship with the Penguins, since he arrived in Carolina in 2012-13, since he spent six long years without making the playoffs to start his Hurricanes tenure, since all the near misses, making the Eastern Conference Final three times (2019, 2023, 2025) without advancing any further.

He kept working, kept grinding, kept trusting.

“It’s an unbelievable ending to a great story,” coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “I’m so proud of him, and I’m proud that he was able to do that in front of the whole hockey world. Everyone got to see now what I’ve known forever, what kind of player he is, but a leader. We’re not hoisting that without him. It’s just not even close.

“But I’m glad for him. Because I’ve seen this guy grind it out for 14 years and never waver. It doesn’t always work out, as we know, but it’s nice to see the good guys get one, you know?”

Perhaps what is most remarkable about what happened on Sunday was that when Staal was handed the Conn Smythe, it marked the first individual award of his career. He has never been the type of player singled out, not for a Hart Trophy or a Mark Messier NHL Leadership Award, not for a Selke Trophy.

But this? This was his. He had put up 12 points (eight goals, four assists) in 19 games in the playoffs, with seven of those points, including six goals, coming in the six games of the Final. He became the first player in 70 years to score in each of the first five games of a Final, and the second captain in 105 years to score at least six goals in a Final.

“It’s incredible,” Marc Staal said. “Just shows that he was so good all playoffs. A lot of times the offensive stuff doesn’t come for him, but he was so good in every aspect of the game. And then he started to get rewarded for it. And he deserved it. He’s the driver of that team. He brings everybody along.”

He wasn’t the only one that felt that way.

This was, after all, a captain who had opened the playoffs by fighting Ottawa Senators forward Brady Tkachuk on the opening face-off of the opening round, a player who got stronger as the games got tighter and more important, a player who raised his level as the stakes were raised.

“That guy is incredible,” forward Jordan Martinook said. “We don’t need to talk about how old he is, just because he’s a premier center in this League, and I’m so happy he got recognized because people don’t talk about him. I mean, he should win the Selke every year. Obviously, when Patrice Bergeron was in the mix, sure.

“But you talk to every first-line center that we played throughout this playoffs, and I bet you they say they hate playing against Jordan Staal. And then for him to come out and do what he does in the Cup Final, you can’t put into words what he means to this team. He’s been through the lows here and now he’s lifting (the Cup) above his head.”

When the Hurricanes were awarded the Cup, it was handed first to Staal, as captain. He took it in his hands and skated toward his teammates, his mouth open and yelling as he hoisted it up.

A reward, finally come.

As he hugged his brothers and talked with them on the ice after the game, they acknowledged that this was not exactly how he had drawn it up in Carolina, not exactly how he had pictured it. He was supposed to win the Cup with Eric, after all, supposed to make it happen so much sooner than 17 years, the longest gulf between two Cup championships for any player in NHL history.

But on Sunday, all those supposed tos fell away. He had done it, once again.

“The plan was to do it together. Obviously, it didn’t work out,” Staal said. “But that’s life sometimes. Obviously, especially now, I'm happy I stuck around. I believed in the culture, I believed in what we were trying to build in Carolina. It was just an amazing feeling to be able to build something like that. And to top it all off with this, I mean, it’s an absolute dream, for sure.”