Jordan was 17 then, cheering on Eric as a fan before being selected by the Pittsburgh Penguins with the No. 2 pick of the 2006 NHL Draft. He looked back on that and ahead to this opportunity at Stanley Cup Final Media Day on Monday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was a kid when he won it,\u201d he said. \u201c(I remember) coming down to Carolina for 1 and 2, how crazy it was, and obviously to now be on the ice for Game 1 and 2 of the Stanley Cup Final, it\u2019s going to be such a surreal moment, super exciting. A wild ride, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jordan won the Cup with Pittsburgh in 2009, when he was 20 and in his third NHL season. He joined Eric in Carolina on June 22, 2012, when the Penguins traded him to the Hurricanes. They played together for almost four seasons, until the Hurricanes traded Eric to the New York Rangers on Feb. 28, 2016.<\/p>\n
While Eric went on to play for the Minnesota Wild, Buffalo Sabres, Montreal Canadiens and Florida Panthers, retiring after the 2022-23 season, Jordan stayed in Carolina.<\/p>\n
The Hurricanes missed the playoffs in each of Jordan\u2019s first six seasons. Now they have made them for eight straight seasons, and after losing in the Eastern Conference Final in 2019, 2023 and 2025, they\u2019re finally back in the Cup Final. Jordan has played 104 playoff games for Carolina, tied with Sebastian Aho for first in Hurricanes history.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen Eric left, I could have easily moved on or done something different,\u201d Jordan said. \u201cBut the people here and the group we had and everything\u2019s that gone on since then, I\u2019m happy that I\u2019m sitting here today and stuck with it and had an opportunity to build something very special in Carolina.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eric is proud of the leader Jordan has become and knows how much winning the Cup in Carolina would mean to him.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, he\u2019s invested so, so many days, nights, blood, sweat, tears, all the things from being there,\u201d Eric said. \u201cFrom the beginning of his time, it\u2019s incredible where they\u2019ve gone and where they are, so he hasn\u2019t been more driven or motivated\u00a0to get this thing across the finish line than I\u2019ve seen at any other time in his playing career.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eric works as special assistant to Buffalo Sabres general manager Jarmo Kekalainen, and he\u2019ll head to Buffalo for pro scouting meetings Sunday through Tuesday. But he\u2019s hoping to be back in Carolina for Game 5 on Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cIdeally with them getting two games in Vegas,\u201d Eric said. \u201cI know that\u2019s going to be a tall task, because they\u2019re pretty good, but that would be the ideal scenario. We\u2019ll see how it shakes out.\u201d<\/p>\n
What a story that would be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jordan was 17 then, cheering on Eric as a fan before being selected by the Pittsburgh Penguins with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":718071,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-718070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=718070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/718071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=718070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=718070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=718070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}