He had been working for this for so long, since that championship with the Penguins, since he arrived in Carolina in 2012-13, since he spent six long years without making the playoffs to start his Hurricanes tenure, since all the near misses, making the Eastern Conference Final three times (2019, 2023, 2025) without advancing any further.<\/p>\n
He kept working, kept grinding, kept trusting.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an unbelievable ending to a great story,\u201d coach Rod Brind\u2019Amour said. \u201cI\u2019m so proud of him, and I\u2019m proud that he was able to do that in front of the whole hockey world. Everyone got to see now what I\u2019ve known forever, what kind of player he is, but a leader. We\u2019re not hoisting that without him. It\u2019s just not even close.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I\u2019m glad for him. Because I\u2019ve seen this guy grind it out for 14 years and never waver. It doesn\u2019t always work out, as we know, but it\u2019s nice to see the good guys get one, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n
Perhaps what is most remarkable about what happened on Sunday was that when Staal was handed the Conn Smythe<\/a>, it marked the first individual award of his career. He has never been the type of player singled out, not for a Hart Trophy or a Mark Messier NHL Leadership Award, not for a Selke Trophy.<\/p>\n But this? This was his. He had put up 12 points (eight goals, four assists) in 19 games in the playoffs, with seven of those points, including six goals, coming in the six games of the Final. He became the first player in 70 years to score in each of the first five games of a Final, and the second captain in 105 years to score at least six goals in a Final.<\/p>\n