Inside the NHL’s post-series handshake, one of hockey’s most enduring traditions
When you win, there’s no better place to be.
If you lose, not so much.
The handshake line in hockey can be equally fulfilling or frustrating. Two teams battle their hearts out in a Stanley Cup playoff series, decide a winner, then line up and shake hands when it’s over. It’s quite the tradition.
“It’s something unique to our sport and separates what we do,” Carolina Hurricanes forward Taylor Hall said Tuesday.
The Canes have done it twice this year in the playoffs — both times as the winners. Both ended on the road before the other team’s fans, in their building, both after four-game sweeps.
But what’s it like to be in those lines?
“It’s a little awkward but it depends on what side you’re on, obviously, and it depends on how the series ended,” Hall said after a practice session at Lenovo Center. “You have to be a good sport about it. You don’t want to gloat if you win and have a big smile on your face while you’re dapping ‘em up.
“I’ve had small, respectful conversations with those where you’ve just battled it out. I remember a guy with Florida last year who said, ‘Good battles all series’ because he and I went at it pretty good. That’s stuck with me, so if I’m on the winning side, if there was someone I played against shift to shift all series, I try to convey it to him.”
The Florida Panthers knocked the Hurricanes out of the playoffs last year in the Eastern Conference final, then went on to win the Cup. A year later, Canes are looking to atone for that knockout in the conference final after blowing past the Ottawa Senators and Philadelphia Flyers, winning eight consecutive games in the two series.
Hall was a part of seminal moments in Game 3 of each series: his big hit on Sens defenseman Jake Sanderson, then another on Flyers defenseman Travis Sanheim. Sanderson suffered a series-ending concussion, the Sens said. Sanheim was shaken up but continued to play after what he said was a “pretty dirty play.”
Hall was given two-minute minor penalties for each hit and quickly cast into the villain’s role, the source of boos and animosity in Ottawa and then Philly.
Hall said he did not speak with Sanheim in the handshake line Saturday after the Canes’ 3-2 overtime win in Game 4. The two did shake hands, he said.
“For sure,” Hall said. “It was a good series. It was quick.”
A test of brotherly love
Some handshake lines can be quick and painful, especially if there is family involved. Jordan Staal was with the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2009 when the Pens swept the Canes in the Eastern Conference final. That meant an emotional handshake with the Canes’ Eric Staal, Jordan’s oldest brother.
In the 2008 playoffs, the Pens had defeated the New York Rangers and defenseman Marc Staal, another older brother.
The flipside came in 2023, when Eric and Marc Staal were teammates on the Panthers team that swept the Canes in the conference final.
“My joke there is that it took both of them to take me down,” Jordan Staal said, grinning. “I was fortunate to be on the right side of all the handshakes with the bros until that last one.
“Those series are always fun but hard at the same time. Obviously, playing against my brothers on the same team at our age and in the East Conference final, you couldn’t have written it up any better. Obviously, I would have liked to have been on the other side of that one, but it was a pretty cool one.”
Few players on the Canes get on the other team’s nerves more than Andrei Svechnikov. The power forward can deliver the boom and will let you know about it, too. He plays on the edge and No. 37 seemingly is a part of every scrum if he’s on the ice.
Svechnikov said no opposing player has shied away from shaking his hand after a playoff series. “You have to respect the other boys for playing hard hockey, and hitting you everywhere and all that,” he said. “I’m fine with all that stuff. It’s just hockey, you know.
“For me, personally, it’s fine. It’s like it’s ended, you forget about what’s happened. You have the handshake and move on.”
Svechnikov noted that in Russia’s KHL, there’s a handshake line after every game in the regular season, then when a playoff series ends. “That’s a little too much,” he said. “I like our way more.”
After beating the Flyers in Game 4, the handshakes began with Flyers fans, notorious for their boos, cheering for a team that gamely fought its way in the playoffs and won a round before running into the Hurricanes.
Canes coach Rod Brind’Amour paused a few seconds while shaking hands with Flyers coach Rick Tocchet, a former Flyers teammate, and pointed up toward the fans.
“I played with ‘Toc’ and have a lot of respect for him and obviously played in that organization for a long time and have a lot of respect for the people there,” Brind’Amour said Tuesday. “You could hear the crowd was appreciative of their effort. That’s all I said to him, ‘You should be proud of that, because you’re getting the team back in the right direction.’
“I was happy for him and those people, because it’s a great hockey town.”
Canes go back to work
After taking a few days off the ice, the Canes returned to practice Tuesday at Lenovo Center. The next opponent will be either the Montreal Canadiens or Buffalo Sabres, still locked up in their second-round series.
The Canes had a long break after the Ottawa series before playing the Flyers. They don’t mind another one.
“I think everyone in this room has given everything they have since the start of these playoffs,” Staal said after practice.
Staal won the 2009 Stanley Cup with the Pens. The Canes captain knows what it takes to get it done, lift the Cup.
That’s one handshake line, the ultimate one, every player wants to be in as the winner. What was that like for Staal?
“It’s a bit of a blur with all the stuff that goes on at that time,” he said, smiling. “It’s the same scenario, though, in showing respect and appreciating the battle and having that respect for the game.”
