The Carolina Hurricanes beat the Montreal Canadiens 6-1 in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Final on Friday and declined to touch the Prince of Wales Trophy after the presentation, leaving the ritual — and its folklore — intact as they advance to the Stanley Cup Final.
NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly handed the trophy to Jordan Staal after the win; Staal posed for photos with his teammates but did not touch the silver bowl before the team left the ice. The choice echoed a franchise decision from 2006, when captain Rod Brind'Amour likewise refused the trophy and Carolina went on to win its first Stanley Cup that year, defeating the Edmonton Oilers in seven games.
The franchise’s relationship with the trophy has produced two different paths. In 2002, Ron Francis lifted the Prince of Wales Trophy and the Hurricanes lost the Stanley Cup Final to the Detroit Red Wings in five games. The trophy itself has been the Eastern Conference championship award since the 1993-94 season; whether players touch it has become a superstition without a clear pattern.
That uncertainty is visible across recent history. The Florida Panthers did not touch the Prince of Wales Trophy in each of the past two seasons and won the Stanley Cup both times. Tampa Bay touched the trophy in 2020, 2021 and 2022 — winning the Cup in 2020 and 2021 but losing the 2022 Final — and other clubs have mixed records: the New Jersey Devils, Boston Bruins, New York Rangers and Tampa Bay Lightning all lost the Cup Final after refusing to touch the trophy in 2012–2015. Zdeno Chara did not touch the trophy in 2019 and Boston lost that Final in seven games.
The pattern cuts both ways: teams that touch have often gone on to win, and teams that abstain have sometimes prevailed. Sidney Crosby touched the trophy in 2016 and 2017 and the Pittsburgh Penguins won the Stanley Cup both seasons; Alex Ovechkin touched it in 2018 and the Washington Capitals won. Yet the Boston Bruins were the most recent team before the 2024 Panthers to win the Stanley Cup after choosing not to touch the Prince of Wales Trophy, underscoring that ritual choices do not dictate outcomes.
Carolina’s decision Friday places it among squads that treat the conference presentation as a moment to avoid tempting fate, but it also places the Hurricanes within a ledger of contradictory results. The Golden Knights, who claimed the Clarence S. Campbell Bowl in the West, likewise declined to touch their conference trophy, leaving the Cup Final to settle whether ceremony or on-ice performance carries the day.
What happens next is concrete: the Hurricanes will meet the Vegas Golden Knights in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final on Tuesday at Lenovo Center at 8 p.m. ET. The central question now is not whether Carolina observes the superstition — it already has — but whether that small, visible choice will mean anything once the puck drops in Los Angeles. The answer will come on the ice, where habit and history stop mattering and results decide the story.
