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\u201cIt’s hard to really describe,\u201d Staal said as he sat at his locker. “It’s been a lot of grinding, a lot of ups and downs. … I’m just so happy to be where we’re at and just excited for the opportunity ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Assembling a core<\/p>\n
Carolina’s rise began with Brind’Amour being elevated to head coach in 2018 after seven seasons as an assistant. At the time, the Hurricanes were mired in a nine-year playoff drought.<\/p>\n
They haven’t missed the postseason since. And the quintet has been there throughout that Brind’Amour-led climb:<\/p>\n
\u2014 The Hurricanes acquired Staal from Pittsburgh during the 2012 NHL Entry Draft. He won the Cup with the Penguins in 2009 \u2014 which included a sweep of the Hurricanes in the Eastern Conference Final when Brind’Amour was still a player \u2014 but had toiled through six of Carolina’s postseason-less seasons.<\/p>\n
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\u2014 Slavin was a 2012 fourth-round pick who had played three seasons with Carolina before becoming one of the NHL’s best defense-first blue liners.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Aho was a 2015 second-round pick and had played two seasons with Carolina on his way to developing into the Hurricanes’ top-line center.<\/p>\n
\u2014 The Hurricanes acquired Martinook from Arizona days after Brind\u2019Amour took over, adding a player who would join Staal on a strong checking line.<\/p>\n
\u2014 And the Hurricanes drafted Svechnikov with the No. 2 overall pick a month after Brind’Amour’s promotion, with Svechnikov now a physical fixture on Aho’s wing.<\/p>\n
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Results were immediate. Carolina took out the reigning Cup champion Washington Capitals in a seven-game first-round series, then went on to make an unexpected trip to the Eastern Conference Final before being swept by Boston.<\/p>\n
It was a start, both of sustained success and recurring frustration.<\/p>\n
\u2018Scar tissue\u2019<\/p>\n
The Hurricanes returned to the Eastern Conference Final again in 2023, this time with home-ice advantage against the Florida Panthers. But they were swept again by four one-goal margins, including a four-overtime epic in Game 1.<\/p>\n
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Then last year, the Hurricanes returned for a rematch that quickly went awry. They lost Games 1 and 2 in a performance that frustrated a normally rowdy and exuberant home crowd, fell into an 0-3 series hole and exited in five games.<\/p>\n
That dropped Carolina to 1-12 in that round under Brind’Amour, unable to turn years of consistent regular-season success into a breakthrough playoff moment. It’s all part of \u201cscar tissue\u201d Martinook mentioned Friday night, shared by the quintet with Brind’Amour as well as holdovers like assistant coach Jeff Daniels and longtime video coach Chris Huffine.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve really grinded out and did it the right way,\u201d Brind’Amour said, “and took a lot of, I think, flack for getting this far and not getting past it. Unduly. I don’t think that was right, because they played as hard as they could. … They gave it everything they had, and that\u2019s all you can ask.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe got better this year, we added some pieces that made us better to get us to this point. But as a coach, you watch these guys every day, there’s nobody luckier than me to have these guys, the way they approach their business on a daily basis, not just now.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Scaling the obstacle<\/p>\n
That was never more on display than against Montreal.<\/p>\n
The Hurricanes swept Ottawa and Philadelphia in the first two rounds, securing an 11-day between-rounds break \u2014 the longest in the playoffs in more than a century. They emerged with a horrid start against the Canadiens, who pounced for four first-period goals in a 6-2 win that harkened back to past conference-final troubles.<\/p>\n
Instead of stumbling, the playoff-tested Hurricanes ascended.<\/p>\n
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Nikolaj Ehlers gave them a 3-2 overtime win in Game 2. They won Game 3 by the same OT score on Svechnikov’s road winner, with Aho screening Jakub Dobes at the top of the crease. And they got to their smothering game Staal likened to a \u201cmachine\u201d from there, winning 4-0 on the road before Friday’s 6-1 home win.<\/p>\n
That made Carolina the first team to reach the Stanley Cup Final with only one loss since 1983, according to SportRadar, and first to do so since the league went to best-of-seven series in all four postseason rounds in 1987.<\/p>\n
Now comes a date with Vegas for the Cup, a rare new experience for Carolina’s holdovers in this long run.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like it was more maybe you guys talking about, ‘Oh, this is the Eastern Conference Final, can’t go past it,’\u201d Aho told reporters in the locker room afterward. \u201cI thought the room was definitely very confident in what we can do. But yeah, it feels good to play for the Cup now.\u201d<\/p>\n
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AP NHL: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nhl<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Carolina Hurricanes head coach Rod Brind’Amour, top right, looks at a replay during the first period in Game…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":587287,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[1742,65391,5,1238,909,26376,1448,1284,794,10617,3494,3492,10615,10616,48059,10019,1535,1174,65390],"class_list":["post-587305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hockey","tag-andrei-svechnikov","tag-chris-huffine","tag-hockey","tag-jaccob-slavin","tag-jakub-dobes","tag-jeff-daniels","tag-jordan-martinook","tag-jordan-staal","tag-nikolaj-ehlers","tag-package-100024-ap-online","tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","tag-product-32002-ap-online-hockey-news","tag-product-32562-ap-online-other-sports-news","tag-product-40798-ap-nevada-sports-only","tag-product-40804-ap-north-carolina-sports-only","tag-rod-brindamour","tag-sebastian-aho","tag-stanley-cup-carolina-hurricanes-advance"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=587305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/587287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=587305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=587305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=587305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}