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<p>Rod Brind&#8217;Amour knows a thing or two about how Jordan Staal is feeling. Now <a href="https://apnews.com/article/stanley-cup-coaches-c515d2b116e3d39d15a02c06fb83deb8">the Carolina Hurricanes&#8217; coach</a>, Brind&#8217;Amour was their captain when they won the Stanley Cup two decades ago, and now Staal wears the &#8220;C.&#8221;</p>
<p>Before <a href="https://apnews.com/article/stanley-cup-final-vegas-carolina-6d57c169590080775efc560d6b554612">the final against Vegas</a> started, Brind&#8217;Amour was clear about one thing.</p>
<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re not here today without Jordan Staal,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I can promise you that. We&#8217;re very lucky. And as a coach, you&#8217;re super fortunate to have a guy like that be your leader.&#8221;</p>
<p>Staal led the Hurricanes to <a href="https://apnews.com/article/hurricanes-golden-knights-score-stanley-cup-3877d81383e8dfa19c7f118bd7751962">the second championship</a> in franchise history by being the two-way shutdown center and faceoff ace he has been his entire NHL career. By <a href="https://apnews.com/article/jordan-staal-carolina-hurricanes-stanley-cup-nhl-92f872a0a04ad250918f41d70477dc51">elevating his game</a> and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/jordal-staal-stanley-cup-by-numbers-506f6ced2ea3f96a12552c25077d86dc">leading them in goals</a> 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>
<p>At 37, Staal is the oldest player to win the honor.</p>
<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s always really good, but yeah, he&#8217;s stepped it up at such a pivotal time,&#8221; teammate Seth Jarvis said. &#8220;It&#8217;s incredible to watch, and it&#8217;s so much fun playing with him and being around him.&#8221;</p>
<p>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 &#8217;09, his first half-dozen years with the Hurricanes passed without a postseason appearance.</p>
<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t 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,&#8221; fellow veteran Jordan Martinook said. &#8220;The fact that he&#8217;s seen some pretty dark days here and then to be on the other side of it &#8230; he stuck through it the whole time.&#8221;</p>
<p>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&#8217;Amour from 2005-10 and older brother Eric from 2010-16.</p>
<p>Staal took on the weight of those premature exits.</p>
<p>&#8220;Each scar, each moment just drives a hunger even deeper into you,&#8221; Staal said. &#8220;Being a part of this core and all the scars that we&#8217;ve gone through just brings that care factor for each other that we want it for each other that much more.&#8221;</p>
<p>Staal has never gotten the Selke Trophy as the league&#8217;s 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>
<p>Told of Brind&#8217;Amour&#8217;s 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>
<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m just being me,&#8221; Staal said. &#8220;I&#8217;m not really anyone different. But just my day-to-day presence is showing up and working. That&#8217;s all I&#8217;ve done since I got here in Carolina, and being consistent with that must have been enough.&#8221;</p>
<p>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&#8217;s 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>
<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m not really surprised,&#8221; Brind&#8217;Amour said. &#8220;You take the goals away, it&#8217;d be the same impact. It&#8217;s just added that extra element.&#8221;</p>
<hr />
<p>AP Sports Writer Aaron Beard in Raleigh, North Carolina, contributed to this report.</p>
<hr />
<p>AP NHL: <a href="https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup">https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup</a> and <a href="https://apnews.com/hub/nhl">https://apnews.com/hub/nhl</a></p>

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