Rod Brind’Amour leads the Hurricanes to a Stanley Cup — this time from behind the bench

LAS VEGAS — Jordan Martinook sought out someone in particular as the Carolina Hurricanes’ Stanley Cup celebrations began.

“I was the first guy to give him a hug,” Martinook said as his teammates and family rejoiced all over the T-Mobile Arena ice surface Sunday night. “He’s been in my corner since I got here. He’s the reason I’ve stuck around as long as I have. There’s times I didn’t know if I was going to stay and then he gets on the phone and tells me, ‘You can’t leave.’ I couldn’t imagine not being on this team. And the fact we got it done, he’s the best coach I’ve ever had. I’m so happy for him.”

Toe Blake with Montreal, Hap Day with Toronto and Cooney Weiland with Boston are the only other people in NHL history to both captain and coach the same organization to a Stanley Cup.

Welcome to that elite club, Rod Brind’Amour.

“It’s still awesome, it’s just as awesome,” Brind’Amour said at his postgame news conference, a Stanley Cup champions scarf draped around his neck. “But as a player it was a little different, because I had dreamt of winning the Cup my whole life so that was like a piano had come off my back. This time around, I wanted it for the group. I wanted them to feel what it’s like. I wanted it so bad for them.

“To watch them finally get it, and when I was grabbing (the Cup), just to see the look on their faces, it’s priceless, because you knew how happy they were for me. It was the other way around for me. I’ll never forget that.”

To a player, the Hurricanes all credit one person especially for their Stanley Cup dreams coming true Sunday night after a 3-0 win in Game 6 ended the series with the Vegas Golden Knights.

“I can’t say enough,” Carolina winger Seth Jarvis, tears of joy filling his eyes during the celebrations, said of his head coach. “He’s lived it as a player, he’s been through it, he’s lifted it, and now to lift it as a coach, we have the utmost respect for him. Everything he says goes. He’s a big reason why we won.”

That compiled knowledge as a star player, as a captain, and then as a coach — it’s all built up to how Brind’Amour approaches his craft today.

“He’s played before, so he understands the feel of a team and looking across the room and looking in everyone’s eyes and understanding that they need to bring it, and you need to bring it for them,” said Hurricanes captain Jordan Staal. “He understands that. The motivation to run through a wall for him is there.”

A coach’s first Stanley Cup is often a long journey, as we saw with Paul Maurice two years ago. Maurice’s Florida Panthers beat Brind’Amour’s Hurricanes in the Eastern Conference final last year as well as in 2023. Maurice passed on the baton as Cup champion coach Sunday night with great respect for his Carolina counterpart, whom he coached on a Carolina team that went to the 2002 Stanley Cup Final.

“Rod has excelled at developing an identity game, and having the Hurricanes be very consistent over the years playing that exact game,” the two-time Cup champion coach told The Athletic via text message Sunday. “Good for him.”

Peter Laviolette coached Brind’Amour as captain on that 2006 Stanley Cup championship team. He is not surprised at the captain turned coach and the success that followed.

“I think Roddy has done an amazing job as coach of putting a winning culture forward and establishing such a high standard of play over the last 6-8 years with Carolina,” Laviolette told The Athletic via text message. “While there has been some level of success, it hadn’t reached ultimate success … until now! Championships are hard to win. Based on such a incredibly steady body of work year after year, the Carolina Hurricanes, and Rod, are so deserving to be 2026 Stanley Cup champions.”

It was Don Waddell as then-GM in Carolina who had the wisdom to name Brind’Amour as head coach in May 2018. He had zero doubt Brind’Amour was ready for that promotion after seven years as an assistant coach.

“Rod is always totally prepared,” Waddell told The Athletic via text message. “Guys love to play for him because he cares and doesn’t ask to do anything that he didn’t do as a player. He respects his players and the feeling is mutual.”

It is rare for coaches to last this long with one team in the modern era.

“One of the words that I love to describe Rod is respect,” said top Carolina defenseman Jaccob Slavin. “He respects us, he respects the game. He respects what it takes to be an NHL player. He had an unbelievable career, so for guys coming into our team, they get a guy who’s real, who is real with them, who will treat them well. But he’s also going to let them know what’s demanded and expected of them. I think what keeps him successful is one, his work ethic, but two, just how real he is.”

Former Hurricanes star Eric Staal, who won a Cup as Brind’Amour’s teammate in 2006, spoke to that honesty.

“He’s a genuine, honest, hard-working, good guy,” Eric Staal said as his brother Jordan’s team celebrated around him on the ice. “If you’re a good person, and you’re honest, I’m sure there are a lot of guys that aren’t gonna like what he’s gonna say, but he’s gonna be upfront and honest, and he’s gonna push these guys to a level that he obviously has. I am not surprised at all.”

Those seven years as assistant coach were an important apprenticeship, Brind’Amour said, preparing him for becoming head coach.

“I’ve always tried to be myself, I think that’s the key,” Brind’Amour said when asked what he’s learned the most in the last eight years. “And I knew that coming in. I had an advantage because I had been with the guys for seven years, so it wasn’t like I was coming into a new situation. It was just, I could finally basically use my voice, you know? Assistant coach is different, you’re following what the other lead is.

“But I knew what was in the room. (Staal) was just waiting to get the reins, so to speak. That was an advantage for me. Because a lot of times a new coach comes in and it takes a while to figure out who does what and who fits. Like, some guys don’t fit. You have that advantage when you’re there for a long time. That’s where I got fortunate starting that way. And we were able to get off to get a real good start.”

They’ve made the playoffs every single year with Brind’Amour as head coach, taking multiple swings at it, and finally that frustration of petering out in the conference finals is over. They’re Stanley Cup champions. And Brind’Amour is the biggest reason why.

Staal is a deserving Conn Smythe Trophy winner as playoff MVP. But the mere fact it was so difficult to pick among so many different players on the roster speaks to the team’s depth and getting contributions from everywhere. And that they don’t have a true superstar player leading the way.

Mind you, that superstar in many ways is their head coach. He’s the face of the franchise. He’s the pulse of the team.

“Roddy is a head down, loyal, matter of fact, 100 percent all in leader and it’s been that way since I met him over 20 years ago,” Justin Williams, who played with and then under Brind’Amour, told The Athletic via text message. “Once he sets his mind on something he knows no other way than to fully embrace the challenges that lie ahead.

“There isn’t a name or face that exemplifies what it means to be a Hurricane more than Roddy. He and the Hurricanes logo are synonymous with each other and I have no doubt that when he retires from the game, a statue will stand outside the arena as a symbol of his commitment, longevity and passion to the city. He, along with Tom Dundon, the city, players and staff have made Raleigh a destination that players want to come and be a part of.”

Brind’Amour could have left a few years ago when his contract was up. There were some big-market teams willing to throw money over fist at him. But his loyalty to the Hurricanes and the community he’s called home for so long, that matters too much to him.

“I have a certain way to coach and I don’t think I can do it anywhere else,” Brind’Amour said Sunday night. “We have a lot of talk in our room about caring. That’s not phony. This has been my home forever, my kids have been raised in Raleigh, I played for the team, it’s just — I’ve been very lucky. I don’t know how many coaches anywhere kind of have that.

“We know coaching has a shelf life. I get it. But certainly not this year (laughing). But it’s a special bond I get to have with my guys, just because I’ve been here so long and some of them have been here so long. That’s special.”

His longevity behind the same bench has allowed for the kind of consistency coaches aspire to.

“Rod has done an incredible job with his group,” Team USA Olympic champion head coach Mike Sullivan told The Athletic via text message. “He has inspired them to stay the course and they clearly have bought in to the game plan he has put forth for them. They have established a clear identity as an organization. Rod deserves a lot of credit for his influence on that process.”

Added New York Islanders head coach Peter DeBoer via text message to The Athletic: “Rod’s belief in how the game should be played has been unwavering despite disappointments along the way. Coaches everywhere love to see that get rewarded.”

It was unwavering in some part because Brind’Amour’s relationship with his captain is perhaps as strong as any in the NHL. His vision for how the team should play has always been backed by Staal.

“It’s been a fun ride,” Staal said of having Brind’Amour as head coach for the last eight years. “From Day 1, he stepped and right away was like, ‘We’re raising this bar, we’re raising this standard.’ He demanded that right away. And anyone that wasn’t going to go with it, and wasn’t moving the way we were all moving, you know, he made moves.

“He’s continued to grow and grow and he continues to try and get better every single day,” the Carolina captain continued on the evolution of their head coach. “He’s a massive reason why we’re sitting here today.”

Of that, there is no doubt.

“I can’t conceive of success without him,” Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon said while the team celebrated on the ice around him. “I think he is literally the most important thing we have in Carolina. He was proud of the Hurricanes when nobody else was. One of the reasons I hired him is he loved the Hurricanes. He keeps it every day in a way that I know I can be proud and I never have to worry, nobody has to worry about how we’re going to play, if we’re going to have a chance to win, how we’re going to treat people. We’re very lucky.”