2006 Stanley Cup Final

Paths to the Finals

The Hurricanes won the Southeast Division and entered the playoffs as the second seed in the Eastern Conference. They eliminated the seventh-seeded Montreal Canadiens in six games, then the third-seeded New Jersey Devils in five, and finally the fourth-seeded Buffalo Sabres in seven to reach the Final. The Oilers qualified as the eighth seed in the Western Conference. They upset the Presidents' Trophy-winning Detroit Red Wings in six games, overcame a two-games-to-none deficit to beat the fifth-seeded San Jose Sharks in six, and defeated the sixth-seeded Mighty Ducks of Anaheim in five to return to the Final for the first time since 1990. Edmonton became the first NHL team and the first since the NBA's 1999 New York Knicks to reach a championship final as a number eight seed.

Game summaries

This series was the first Stanley Cup Final between two former World Hockey Association teams since the WHA merged with the NHL in 1979. Because of a new scheduling formula introduced for the 2005–06 season, the Hurricanes and Oilers did not meet during the regular season. These were the first Finals contested by two teams that had both missed the playoffs the previous season (skipping 2005 due to the lockout) and that would both miss the following year's playoffs. Hurricanes head coach Peter Laviolette, who had coached the American ice hockey team at the Torino Olympics earlier in 2006, joined Ron Wilson as the only people to have head coached in an Olympics and a Stanley Cup Final in the same year.

Stanley Cup engraving

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman presented the Stanley Cup to Hurricanes captain Rod Brind'Amour after Carolina's 3–1 victory in game seven. The names of Anton Babchuk and Andrew Hutchinson, who played regular season games but were healthy scratches throughout the playoffs, were engraved after Carolina successfully requested an exemption. Eric Staal's name was initially misspelled as ERIC STAAAL on the Cup; engraver Louise St. Jacques corrected the error by removing the extra A. Frantisek Kaberle became the first player to win an Olympic bronze medal in ice hockey and the Stanley Cup in the same year.

Craig Adams was the first player born in Brunei to win the Cup. Nine players remained from the Carolina team that lost to Detroit in the 2002 Final. The ring of winners from 1940–41 to 1952–53 was retired to make room for a new ring, one year later than planned because of the lockout; the NHL included the inscription '2004-05 season not played' to the left of the Carolina Hurricanes section. Keith Aucoin, David Gove, and Craig Kowalski, who were on the roster during the Final but did not dress for any playoff games, were left off the engraving but received championship rings. Several team doctors were also omitted from the engraving but included in the team picture and given rings.

Television

The 2006 Stanley Cup Final marked the first time NBC and OLN (later Versus, then NBC Sports Network) carried the series in the U.S. OLN aired games one and two, while NBC handled the rest. NBC’s game seven earned a 3.3 rating, a 21% drop from ABC’s 4.2 in 2004, and some affiliates skipped the live broadcast. NBC’s five-game average was 2.3, down 12% from ABC’s 2004 average. In Canada, CBC’s game seven broadcast drew 4.739 million viewers including pre- and post-game, while the game alone attracted 5.553 million.