RALEIGH, N.C. -- It took Rod Brind'Amour six seasons as a player to bring the Carolina Hurricanes their first Stanley Cup championship. After 15 years as their coach, he might finally have another chance to lift the Cup again.
The Hurricanes eliminated the Montreal Canadiens with a 6-1 rout in Game 5 to win the Eastern Conference championship on Friday night, continuing their juggernaut run through the playoffs. Carolina swept its first two playoff series, and outside of a Game 1 dud against Montreal -- which happened after 11 days off between series, the longest break in 107 years in the NHL -- the Hurricanes dominated the conference final.
Brind'Amour had coached the Hurricanes to the conference final three previous times, posting only one win and 12 losses against the Boston Bruins (2019) and Florida Panthers (2023, 2025).
"A lot of years with a lot of pain," forward Jordin Martinook said. "It just felt like we had teams that could have gotten there and just couldn't do it."
Brind'Amour joined the Hurricanes as an assistant coach in the 2011-12 season and was named their head coach in 2018-19. That's 15 seasons behind the bench before finally coaching in the Stanley Cup Final, which begins on Tuesday night in Raleigh against the Western Conference champion Vegas Golden Knights.
"For him to have the scar tissue that we all have and to just keep pushing, I'm happy for him as much as I'm happy for all of us in here," Martinook said of Brind'Amour.
When Brind'Amour walked into Carolina's celebratory locker room after the Game 5 victory, his message to the team focused on other people who have waited a long time to compete for the Stanley Cup: His veteran core.
There are five current Hurricanes who played on the 2019 conference finalist in Brind'Amour's first season as head coach: Martinook, captain Jordan Staal, defenseman Jaccob Slavin, forward Andrei Svechnikov and center Sebastian Aho.
"I've been here a long time with these guys," Brind'Amour said. "I've seen them grow into great players and unbelievable people, so I'm real happy for them. As a coach, there's nobody luckier than me to have these guys and the way they approach their business on a daily basis."
Brind'Amour also was happy that those players can finally shed the label of being unable to advance past the conference final.
"They took a lot of flak for getting this far and not getting past it. I don't think that was right because they gave it everything they had and that's all you can ask. We got better this year. We added some pieces that has made us better to get us to this point," he said.
Brind'Amour's teams in previous playoff runs were criticized for their inability to score goals in key moments. Statistically, this was the best offensive team he coached in the regular season. That success has carried over to the playoffs: The Hurricanes are the second-highest scoring team he has coached in the postseason (3.23) while being the playoffs' top defensive team (1.62).
Three of the team's top four scorers -- forwards Taylor Hall, Logan Stankoven and Nikolaj Ehlers -- were acquired by general manager Eric Tulsky in the past two seasons.
"They've laid the foundation for everything that's gone on here, and we've kind of added to it," Hall said of the team's core players. "'Culture' is a buzzword, but there's an amazing culture here that has been there for a long time, and it's awesome to be a part of it."
Carolina is now four wins away from the Stanley Cup, but that means defeating the formidable Golden Knights four times.
"It's a different animal," Brind'Amour said. "You can't get this far without being top notch. So we know that's going to be a huge challenge."
The Golden Knights didn't touch their conference champions trophy after sweeping the Colorado Avalanche. Neither did the Hurricanes when presented with the Prince of Wales Trophy after their Game 5 win.
"Group decision," Aho said when asked why they superstitiously stayed away from the hardware.
Brind'Amour said he was part of that group decision.
"I had a few guys ask me what I thought," he said. "I said, 'Do what you want. But don't touch it.'"