LAS VEGAS (AP) – Rod Brind\u2019Amour knows a thing or two about how Jordan Staal is feeling. Now the Carolina Hurricanes\u2019 coach, Brind\u2019Amour was their captain when they won the Stanley Cup two decades ago, and now Staal wears the \u201cC.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before the final against Vegas started, Brind\u2019Amour was clear about one thing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not here today without Jordan Staal,\u201d he said. \u201cI can promise you that. We\u2019re very lucky. And as a coach, you\u2019re super fortunate to have a guy like that be your leader.\u201d<\/p>\n
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 in addition to all those things, he won the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP.<\/p>\n
At 37, Staal is the oldest player to win the honor.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s always really good, but yeah, he\u2019s stepped it up at such a pivotal time,\u201d teammate Seth Jarvis said. \u201cIt\u2019s incredible to watch, and it\u2019s so much fun playing with him and being around him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Staal is the longest-tenured player in the organization. He joined in 2012 in a trade from Pittsburgh on his wedding day, and after winning the Cup with the Penguins in \u201909, his first half-dozen years with the Hurricanes passed without a postseason appearance.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t 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,\u201d fellow veteran Jordan Martinook said. \u201cThe fact that he\u2019s seen some pretty dark days here and then to be on the other side of it … he stuck through it the whole time.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u2019Amour from 2005-10 and older brother Eric from 2010-16.<\/p>\n
Staal took on the weight of those premature exits.<\/p>\n
\u201cEach scar, each moment just drives a hunger even deeper into you,\u201d Staal said. \u201cBeing a part of this core and all the scars that we\u2019ve gone through just brings that care factor for each other that we want it for each other that much more.\u201d<\/p>\n
Staal has never gotten the Selke Trophy as the league\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Told of Brind\u2019Amour\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just being me,\u201d Staal said. \u201cI\u2019m not really anyone different. But just my day-to-day presence is showing up and working. That\u2019s all I\u2019ve done since I got here in Carolina, and being consistent with that must have been enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not really surprised,\u201d Brind\u2019Amour said. \u201cYou take the goals away, it\u2019d be the same impact. It\u2019s just added that extra element.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LAS VEGAS (AP) – Rod Brind\u2019Amour knows a thing or two about how Jordan Staal is feeling. Now the Carolina Hurricanes\u2019 coach, Brind\u2019Amour was their captain when they won the Stanley Cup two decades ago, and now Staal wears the \u201cC.\u201d Before the final against Vegas started, Brind\u2019Amour was clear about one thing. \u201cWe\u2019re not … Continue reading Carolina\u2019s Jordan Staal wins the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP, oldest on record at age 37<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1452],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1515523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":true,"date":"2026-06-16 22:23:32","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[0],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1515523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1515523"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1515523\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1515524,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1515523\/revisions\/1515524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1515523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1515523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1515523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}