Jordan Staal won the biggest trophy in hockey Sunday night, along with it, securing another prestigious piece of hardware: the Conn Smythe Trophy.

“Good time to get hot, hey,” he told Sportsnet’s Kyle Bukauskas when asked about winning the award that’s handed to the most valuable player in the playoffs. “I just wanted to win [the Stanley Cup] so bad.”

“I’ve been grinding with these guys for so long… just trying to break through, and trying to break through… My goodness, we pulled it off,” he said, getting emotional. “I can’t describe it.”

Staal, 37, is the oldest Conn Smythe winner in NHL history, beating out 36-year-olds Tim Thomas and Glenn Hall, who won in 2011 and 1968, respectively. Taylor Hall was next in voting for the award, followed by Logan Stankoven, and Mitch Marner, who was the favourite for the trophy at the beginning of the series.

Marner led the playoffs in scoring with 29 points, and in the first three games of the final, he tallied three goals and five points. Since then, he only recorded one assist, and his team went on to lose the Stanley Cup while Staal hoisted the Conn Smythe.

The Canes’ captain started the playoffs with two goals and five points heading into the Stanley Cup Final, then he exploded for six goals and seven points in the six game series. The captain’s burst of offence lead the Hurricanes to their first Stanley Cup in 20 years, and he set an NHL record for the longest goal streak to begin a Stanley Cup Final with five.

This was Staal’s first cup win in 17 years, the longest gap between two championships for an NHL player, his last came with the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2009. This is the second time a Staal has won it all with Carolina – his brother Eric also did in 2006.

Former Edmonton Oilers defenceman Ethan Bear has re-signed with the New York Islanders as of Monday morning. The contract has an NHL cap hit of $825,000, with a guaranteed $425,000 salary. His contract in the minors carrys a $325,000 salary, according to PuckPedia.

Bear spent the entire 2025-26 season with the teams’ AHL affiliate, the Bridgeport Islanders, where he recorded 27 points in 40 games. His deal is a one-way, two-year contract, which is likely to begin with the Islanders’ new AHL team, the Hamilton Hammers.

The Oilers drafted him 124th overall in the 2015 NHL Draft, he made his professional hockey debut in 2017. From 2017-21 he played for the Oilers, with one 52-game stint for the Bakersfield Condors in the 2018-19 season, before he was traded to the Carolina Hurricanes for Warren Foegele.

He played 275 NHL games between his time with Edmonton, Carolina, the Vancouver Canucks, and the Washington Capitals, logging 17 goals and 67 points. For the 2024-25 season he represented the AHL’s Hershey Bears for one season until they let him walk in 2025 free agency, where he signed his original one-year contract with the Islanders.

Now the Islanders have five unsigned roster players who could become unrestricted free agents on July 1, according to PuckPedia. Those players being, Anders Lee, Carson Soucy, Tony DeAngelo, Adam Boqvist, and David Rittich along with six non-roster players: Matthew Highmore, Matt Luff, Adam Beckman, Travis Mitchell, Cole McWard, and Marcus Hoberg.

With the offseason in full swing after the playoffs wrapped up on Sunday night, the league’s focus has shifted to the NHL Draft slated for June 26-27.

Daily Faceoff’s Steven Ellis listed ten players who have significantly improved their positioning in the 2026 NHL Draft.

He started the list with QMJHL defenceman Tommy Bleyl of the Moncton Wildcats. Ellis wrote, “Bleyl was originally projected to go in the fourth to fifth round but is firmly in the first-round conversation now. He’s a highly skilled two-way defender who came out of nowhere to register 81 points as a QMJHL rookie. He’s exceptionally crafty, skates very well and doesn’t let bigger competition bother him.”

Next is centreman Alexander Command of Orebo, Sweden, who Ellis said is likely to be a second or third liner in the NHL. He is a smart, solid two-way centre, according to Ellis, who will “win face-offs, block shots, and make moves with intent.”

The third player Ellis wrote about was forward Wyatt Cullen, who played for the USA National Team Development Program. As Cullen had a small five-foot-eight frame, he was looked over, until he grew to six-foot-one and established himself as a point-per-game player.

“Cullen is a constant scoring threat because he’s always scanning lanes for passes, but he has the quick footwork and lateral mobility to blow by most opponents and put himself into dangerous areas. Few players have risen as high as Cullen in recent months,” according to Ellis.

Then he lists Måns Gudmundsson, Beckett Hamilton, Simas Ignatavicius, Liam Lefebvre, Filip Růžička, Maksim Sokolovskii, and Matias Vanhanen as players to look for in the draft.

Ellis has Sokolovskii slotted as a potential sneak into the first round of the draft. He is a six-foot-eight defenceman who plays with an intent to make a physical impact on every game for the OHL’s London Knights.

“He’s truly a terrifying human being when it comes to one-on-one situations – he makes it his life mission to kill you… I really like Sokolovskii as a shutdown option. His lack of offense won’t make him attractive to every team, but the fact that he, as a defenseman, makes it his goal to stop guys at any cost should allow him to get to the NHL,” he wrote.

Vanhanen was originally on the cusp of going completely undrafted, however, he became one of the WHL’s best wingers with the Everett Silvertips.

“If it wasn’t for Vanhanen, Everett’s offense would be significantly less lethal – Vanhanen seemed to be the primary play-producer… Scouts aren’t completely sure what type of player he’ll be at the next level. He lacks any sort of physical play, and he’s not all too quick, either. But, man, his puck play is truly remarkable,” Ellis wrote.

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