RALEIGH, N.C. (CP) - The determination that was etched on Rod Brind'Amour's face throughout the NHL playoffs turned into beaming bliss as the captain of the Carolina Hurricanes raised the Stanley Cup over his head.
A 3-1 victory over the Edmonton Oilers in a Game 7 thriller Monday night completed one of the most riveting finals in memory. Hockey's biggest prize now rests where stock car racing and college basketball reign supreme in the world of sport, but where hockey fans are as loud as anywhere else.
''There was no way we were going to lose - that's the way we played,'' said Brind'Amour.
The Oilers leave with heads held high after going much farther in the playoffs than anybody expected. To get so close to going all the way and falling just short was a heartbreaker for captain Jason Smith and his teammates.
Brind'Amour provided inspirational leadership for the Hurricanes, Eric Staal amassed the most playoff points, 28, and Cam Ward became the first rookie netminder since Patrick Roy in 1986 to lead his team to the title. Ward was named playoff MVP.
''Goaltending wins championships and we had the best goaltending in the playoffs,'' said Brind'Amour.
The 22-year-old netminder from the Edmonton suburb of Sherwood Park played with the composure of a veteran after being handed the assignment during the first round.
''It's unbelievable,'' said Ward. ''Your childhood dream of winning the Stanley Cup has finally come true and all that work you put forth through minor hockey and junior, it's all paid off.''
He finished the playoffs with a 15-8 record, 2.14 goals-against average and .920 save percentage.
Aaron Ward and Frantisek Kaberle staked the Hurricanes to a 2-0 lead that held up till the start of the third period. Fernando Pisani replied for the Oilers early in the third and Justin Williams added an empty-netter for the Canes with 61 seconds left in front of a capacity RBC Center crowd of 18,978 that stood and cheered through the whole game.
The first teammate Brind'Amour passed the Stanley Cup to was Glen Wesley. The defenceman from Red Deer, Alta., had played 1,479 games counting regular seasons and playoffs without winning the trophy. No active player had waited longer. Game 1,480 proved the charm.
''It feels surreal,'' he said. ''To wait 18 years and finally be able to experience this .. It was never, never about me. I truly believe that. It was about every guy in the locker-room and it wasn't about one individual.''
The Hurricanes got the opening goal of the finale after only 1:26 after a giveaway by Steve Staios in the neutral zone. Aaron Ward blasted a drive from the top of the circle to the left of Jussi Markkanen and the Finnish goalie couldn't see the puck as it whizzed through a forest of legs.
Pisani and Rem Murray had great short-handed scoring chances while killing off the penalty at the start of the second period. Pisani missed the net with his shot, and Murray shot into Cam Ward's pads.
A fourth consecutive penalty against Edmonton, and the second to Jaroslav Spacek, resulted in Carolina's second goal when Kaberle connected on the power play. Smith dove to block the slap shot, the puck struck his back and it bounced through Markkanen's legs at 4:18.
Penalties to Niclas Wallin and Aaron Ward five seconds apart in the 17th minute gave the Oilers a two-man advantage, but only for one minute. Ryan Smyth was caught hooking, and Cam Ward defused a Chris Pronger rocket as Aaron Ward returned to the ice.
The crowd erupted.
''It was a critical juncture of the game,'' said Oilers coach Craig MacTavish.
The 'Canes were laying on the body as they had earlier in the series. They'd finish the game up 48-23 in the bruise department.
''We got back to the way we can play hockey,'' said Mark Recchi, who waited 15 years to hoist the Stanley Cup a second time.
As the third period began, chances of the Hurricanes clutching the Cup looked good because they had outscored opponents 25-12 in third periods of their 24 previous playoff games this spring.
The Oilers struck early, however, and Pisani got his playoffs-leading 14th goal at 1:03 by lifting in a fat rebound as he crashed the crease.
It was a nailbiter of a finish.
Whatever It Takes was Carolina's playoff motto, and each and every one of the 'Canes made it ring true by backchecking and shot blocking as if their lives depended on it as the Oilers valiantly attempted to tie it.
Edmonton's last gasp came during a roughing call against Carolina's Bret Hedican at 12:38 of the third. The Oilers' power play, a weakness in most games in the series, failed them again. Some of that had to do with the effectiveness of Carolina's penalty killers.
''We really had to earn that one,'' said Ray Whitney, the former Oilers stick boy. ''This is an unbelievable feeling.
''All season long we have been a very focused group. We worked our tails off all year, and (the Oilers) gave us all we could handle.''
The Oilers had excited an entire country as they attempted to become the first Canadian NHL champion since the Montreal Canadiens in 1993. It was an inspiring effort that was made all the more difficult when No. 1 goalie Dwayne Roloson was lost to a knee injury late in Game 1.
''You've got to give Edmonton credit,'' said Cam Ward. ''They didn't give up, they threw everything at us.''
Brind'Amour was asked to sum up his team in one word.
''Desire,'' he replied. ''We wanted it. We had too many guys who weren't going to be denied. My game wasn't so great but this team, man, it doesn't give up.''
Carolina was 1-for-5 in the game and 9-for-44 in the series on power plays, while Edmonton was 0-for-4 and 5-for-46 overall.
''We had three or four five-on-threes on which we failed to connect in a couple of the earlier games,'' said MacTavish. ''That ended up being certainly one of the contributing, if not one of the main factors, why we didn't win it.''
Notes: Carolina had a 27-23 shots advantage .. Aaron Ward hadn't scored a goal since April 28 in the first round .. The home team won Game 7 of the final for the sixth consecutive time. The last time the road team took Game 7 was 1971 when Montreal won 3-2 in Chicago .. Carolina's Cory Stillman, who earned a ring with Tampa Bay in 2004, is the first player since Claude Lemieux (New Jersey 1995, Colorado 1996) to win consecutive titles with different teams .. Edmonton made no lineup changes for the last game. Carolina reinserted Chad LaRose for Josef Vasicek .. The Hurricanes hadn't qualified for the playoffs since 2002. Credit GM Jim Rutherford with a masterful rebuilding job .. Actors Tim Robbins and Cuba Gooding Jr. and musician Kid Rock were in the crowd.