passed it down-ice to Justin Williams. Williams skated down the length of the ice and tapped the puck into the empty net, sealing the Stanley Cup for the Hurricanes. Cam Ward became the first NHL rookie goaltender to win a Stanley Cup finals series since Patrick Roy lead the Montreal Canadiens in , and he was also the first rookie since the Philadelphia Flyers' Ron Hextall in to be awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as Most Valuable Player in the playoffs. Cory Stillman earned a Stanley Cup title for the second-straight season, having won in 2004 with the Tampa Bay Lightning, becoming the first player to win back-to-back titles with different teams since Claude Lemieux (1995 New Jersey Devils, 1996 Colorado Avalanche). The Hurricanes' victory ended Glen Wesley's 18-year drought without winning the Cup. He had played close to 1,500 regular season and playoff games before winning the Cup, the longest such drought in the NHL. Wesley was the last player remaining from the franchise's days as the Hartford Whalers. Other notable veterans to win their first Cup were Rod Brind'Amour, Doug Weight, Ray Whitney and Bret Hedican. Hedican was on the losing end of another final decided in a game seven, in , while with the Vancouver Canucks. Mark Recchi won the second Cup of his career, having won it 15 years prior as a member of the 1991 Pittsburgh Penguins. He would later retire a Stanley Cup winner with the 2011 Boston Bruins, where he teamed up with Frantisek Kaberle's brother Tomas. The Hurricanes became the third former World Hockey Association franchise to win the Stanley Cup, following the Oilers and Quebec Nordiques, who won as the Colorado Avalanche in 1996 and 2001. The 2006 Stanley Cup playoffs marked the second time in a row that an Alberta-based team had made it to the finals only to lose in seven games to the Southeast Division champions, as the Calgary Flames were defeated by the Tampa Bay Lightning in the 2004 Stanley Cup Finals. The Oilers were not able to complete their Cinderella run, having entered the playoffs seeded eighth, denying General Manager Kevin Lowe and Head Coach Craig MacTavish from joining Lester Patrick and Frank Boucher as the only duos to win the Stanley Cup together as players and then as a coach-managerial team, as the two were with the Oilers as players in , and and the