‘It was our time’: Hurricanes answer every challenge in Stanley Cup win | Commentary
Seconds after the puck dropped to start the 2026 Stanley Cup playoffs, Jordan Staal of the Carolina Hurricanes dropped his gloves. He had been challenged to fight by Brady Tkachuk of the Ottawa Senators, captain versus captain, and Staal didn’t back down.
When it was over, Staal was the one on top, the winner.
And that’s the way it was for the next two months. The Hurricanes answered every challenge, ultimately winning the Stanley Cup in Las Vegas.
There were tussles in each playoff series, some physicality and punches thrown, a test of wills and strength and some riveting hockey — and the Canes came out on top, the winners.
Rod Brind’Amour once likened winning a Stanley Cup to climbing Mount Everest, with danger lurking all the way to the summit. He led the Hurricanes to the top in 2006, as the team captain, but badly wanted to do it again, as their coach.
When the Canes won in 2006, Brind’Amour all but snatched the Cup away from commissioner Gary Bettman and lifted it high, his face a mixture of ecstasy and relief. For 20 years, he never touched the Cup again, nor watched other teams celebrate with it. As head coach, he made the Hurricanes into perennial playoff contenders, waiting for the winning moment to come again and firmly believing it would.
And then it did, finally, convincingly.
After Ottawa came the Philadelphia Flyers, then the Montreal Canadiens. If the Eastern Conference Final had been a playoff hurdle — and it was — the Canes stormed through it. Only the Vegas Golden Knights stood in the way, a worthy opponent, but one facing a Hurricanes team with a singleness of purpose, one that would not be denied.
Brind’Amour touched the Cup again. First a big bear hug, then lifting it over his head. The Canes won, cheered on by thousands of fans who made the trip to Las Vegas and let their presence loudly be known, and tens of thousands more in Raleigh who filled Lenovo Center or made their presence known in watch parties large and small.
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The Hurricanes won 16 of their 19 playoff games, a remarkable achievement and one good enough to convince the most curmudgeonly naysayer. They stayed healthy and everyone contributed. Goalie Brandon Bussi was ready when Frederik Andersen faltered. The gloves came off again, this time the players shedding them quickly as they made the mad dash onto the ice to celebrate after the final horn of the final game.
Seated high above the ice at T-Mobile Arena, it was easy to think back to Jaccob Slavin being a slender, floppy-haired teenager from Colorado, but always with that earnestness about him. And first meeting Sebastian Aho from Finland and seeing him grow from boy to man to leader. And the sight of Staal in a Hurricanes jersey for the first time, so long ago. The years passed quickly, and the team changed, but the goal has always been the same.
Staal was the Conn Smythe Trophy winner as playoffs MVP, at 37 the oldest ever. He was the first to hold up the Cup. The franchise, which arrived in North Carolina in 1997 looking to prove it belonged, that hockey could flourish and earn its niche, has given the state its second major league championship.
Thousands awaited the team’s return in Raleigh. Many were young kids caught up in the moment, excited hockey converts ready to lace up skates, just as many young kids did 20 years before.
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Brind’Amour has said no one remembers who finishes second in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
But they remember the champions, the names on the Cup, the players and coaches and staff who bonded together to create lasting memories for so many, young and old. Heroes, all.
As Brind’Amour put it — and aptly: “It was our time.”
Chip Alexander has covered multiple beats in his 40-plus years at The News & Observer, and has covered the Carolina Hurricanes since their move to North Carolina in 1997, including two Stanley Cup wins, seven conference finals, and decades of memories.
