By AARON BEARD AP Sports Writer
RALEIGH, N.C. — Rod Brind’Amour wore a big smile as he walked on the ice to join his Carolina Hurricanes for a photo behind the Prince of Wales Trophy.
It took eight years, but the Hurricanes have finally broken through their Eastern Conference Final roadblock. Now comes the chance to play for the Stanley Cup for the first time in two decades.
Taylor Hall, Logan Stankoven and Eric Robinson scored in a dominating first period that helped push the Hurricanes past the Montreal Canadiens, 6-1, on Friday night, closing a five-game series that sent the East’s top seed on to face Vegas for the Cup.
Three times before under Brind’Amour, the Hurricanes had reached this round, only to win just a single game.
This time, they shook off an ugly series-opening loss that harkened back to those past struggles by winning four straight, steadily asserting control of the series and dominating the last two games to earn that on-ice celebration in front of a rowdy home crowd.
“I wasn’t prepared for media (interviews) and I’m probably going to start crying,” veteran forward Jordan Martinook said in the locker room. “A lot of years with a lot of pain. … It’s been a crazy journey in my time here, but this team, it’s been really special.”
Jackson Blake and Shayne Gostisbehere added second-period goals that pushed the Hurricanes to a 5-0 lead entering the final period, while Seth Jarvis scoring into an empty net with 3:41 left. Former Ducks goaltender Frederik Andersen carried a shutout until midway through the third in net, an emotional performance coming a day after his agent and former NHL player Claude Lemieux died after taking his own life.
Carolina swept through the first two rounds of the playoffs, then regrouped from a 6-2 loss in Game 1 after an extended between-rounds break to win four straight. That included a run of 10 straight goals going back to Andrei Svechnikov’s overtime goal in Game 3 before Montreal finally got on the board with Cole Caufield’s power-play score midway through the third.
That made the Hurricanes the first team to reach the Stanley Cup Final with only one loss since 1983, according to SportRadar, and the only team to do so since the league went to best-of-seven series in all four postseason rounds in 1987.
It was a long-awaited moment for the franchise, even for the new arrivals. That included defenseman K’Andre Miller – a summer trade addition as a missing piece – sitting near the ice afterward, holding his newborn son and shaking his head in an emotional moment of taking it all in.
“It’s kind of hard to unpack right now,” Brind’Amour said. “It’s a weird feeling because it’s kind of where we all thought we should be.”
The Hurricanes have been a perennial contender in the East, yet they entered this series having gone 1-12 in the Eastern Conference Final under Brind’Amour – falling in sweeps to Boston in 2019 and Florida in 2023 before losing in five games to the Panthers in last year’s rematch.
But they were tested, and wounded, from those past postseason failures. Throw in their depth and talent, and the Hurricanes were finally ready to punch through for their third shot at the Cup since the former Hartford Whalers relocated to North Carolina before the 1997-98 season.
The last time the Hurricanes reached this point? Brind’Amour was the captain on a team that hoisted the Cup in a seven-game series against Edmonton in 2006.
After regrouping from a 6-2 loss in Game 1, the Hurricanes took control of the series from the young and skilled Canadiens – who had arrived at this round ahead of schedule after Game 7 road wins against Tampa Bay and Buffalo through the first two rounds.
“As close as it feels, we’re so far away still,” Montreal defenseman Lane Hutson said. “So much more to do to battle to get the ultimate goal. Even when you win two rounds, you still got to find another level for the next round.”
Carolina won consecutive 3-2 overtime games, then took Game 4 in a 4-0 road romp Wednesday.
Beyond the score, Carolina was getting to its smothering game in pressuring the Canadiens in their own end or shutting off most high-danger chances they could muster going the other way.
By midway through the second period, the festive and rowdy crowd was offering “Olé! Olé! Olé! Olé!” chants in a mocking nod to Canadiens fans with Carolina up 4-0. By the final two minutes, they were chanting “We want the Cup! We want the Cup!” as the Hurricanes closed this one out.
“They’re a good team, a lot experience,” Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis said. “You’ve got to give credit to how well they’ve played. They made it really hard on us.”
ANDERSEN REMAINS STEADY FOR HURRICANES
The horn sounded to give Carolina its long-awaited Eastern Conference Final breakthrough, and the players immediately made their way across the ice to Andersen in the victorious crease.
Martinook gave Andersen a hearty hug, tapping the goalie on the helmet the entire time. Then came defenseman Jalen Chatfield. And Brind’Amour followed with a long hug and shared some words, with Andersen pausing afterward to bend forward and collect himself before going through the traditional handshake line.
Andersen was steady again in the Game 5 win, and it came after an emotionally wrenching 36 hours for the goalie, whose agent – former NHL playing great Claude Lemieux – took his own life on Thursday.
“It’s been a difficult couple days, but the way we showed up today and the last couple days for the team for each other, it’s been incredible,” Andersen said in a postgame interview with TNT. “I can’t talk enough good things about this team and the way they’ve supported me. It’s been awesome.”
Andersen’s play has been one of the biggest stories in the Hurricanes’ return to the Cup Final for the first time since hoisting the Cup in 2006, back when their current coach was the team captain. Andersen overcame a shaky start to the season as waiver-wire wonder Brandon Bussi seemed ready to run away with the starting job, had a rejuvenating stretch of playing for Denmark in the Milan Cortina Olympics, played well down the stretch of the regular season and has been a leveled-up version of himself throughout the postseason.
Now the 36-year-old veteran is headed to the Cup Final for the first time in his career.
He was coming off his third shutout of the postseason with Wednesday’s 4-0 road win as the Hurricanes asserted a tighter and tighter grip on control for the series. And that had come just two days after Lemieux had been the Canadiens’ torch bearer before Carolina’s 3-2 overtime win in Game 3.
Andersen didn’t mind Lemieux participating in the pregame Montreal mojo for the franchise where he won one of his four Stanley Cups in 1986 as a rookie.
“He’s like family,” Andersen told North State Journal afterward.
By Thursday, news had broken of Lemieux’s death, with Andersen set to start as the Hurricanes led 3-1 in the best-of-seven series.
“To be honest, wasn’t sure if he was going to be able to play,” Brind’Amour said. “You just don’t know how that was going to shake out. Obviously, he shook it off and battled through it. You saw the emotion after the game. Yeah, that’s a tough time for him. But he made us all proud, that’s for sure.”
Andersen, as he has throughout the entire playoffs, came up with just about every timely save the Hurricanes needed against a skilled but desperate Canadiens team. And just as in the previous three wins, the Hurricanes were largely on their game to play a suffocating style that routinely won puck battles and kept the pressure on Montreal in its own end rather than giving up chances going the other way or shots attempted at Andersen.
Andersen continues to lead the postseason in goals-against average (1.41) and ranks among the leaders in save percentage (.931).
“I know we were playing for him as best we could,” captain Jordan Staal said. “And it’s a tough couple of days here for him. We’re just family here, and we all felt that hurt. We tried to share as best we could and playing well in front of him as best we could do tonight.
“I thought he played unbelievable.”