RALEIGH, N.C. — Thanks to the kid, all those Carolina old-timers finally got to hoist the Stanley Cup.

Rod Brind'Amour cried. Bret Hedican jumped for joy. Even Doug Weight — bad shoulder and all — lifted hockey's most revered trophy above his head. It tilted slightly to his right, but he held on.

No way the Hurricanes were going to let this one slip away.

Cam Ward made sure of that.

The rookie goalie stopped nearly everything that came his way, finishing off a brilliant playoffs with a rock-solid performance in Game 7. The Hurricanes skated away with their first Stanley Cup title, beating Edmonton 3-1 in the winner-take-all finale Monday night.

Ward, only 22, won the Conn Smythe Trophy as most valuable player of the postseason.

"Goaltending wins you championships, make no mistake about it," said Brind'Amour, the 35-year-old captain, his eyes still red after he left the ice. "I got to raise the cup because of that kid."

Brind'Amour wasn't the only member of the 30-something club who finally broke through.

There was Hedican, 35, who lost in his first two trips to the finals. And Weight, 35, who finally made it for the first time in his 15th season. And Whitney, 34, who didn't reach the finals until Year 14. And the most patient one of all, 37-year-old Glen Wesley, who had played in the eighth-most regular-season games (1,311) in NHL history without winning a championship.

All of them will be getting their names on the cup.

Finally.

"That was probably the greatest feeling of my life," coach Peter Laviolette said. "To watch those guys hold the cup over their head — that is what I will remember."

A couple of defensemen, Aaron Ward and Frantisek Kaberle, staked Carolina to a 2-0 lead through two periods. Justin Williams finished off the Oilers, scoring an empty-net goal with 1:01 remaining after Edmonton playoff star Fernando Pisani broke up Cam Ward's shutout early in the third.

Oilers defenseman Chris Pronger, a stalwart throughout the postseason, gave up the puck in the Carolina zone and wound up making a helpless dive to block Williams' gimme into the goal that had been vacated by Jussi Markkanen in favor of an extra skater.

The crowd of nearly 19,000, most of them standing throughout the game, began chanting, "We want the cup!" A minute later, they had their wish. The champions reside on Tobacco Road — territory best known for college basketball and NASCAR — and hockey finished off its promising return from a season-ruining lockout (dismal TV ratings notwithstanding).

"It was just surreal," Brind'Amour said, explaining his emotions. "It just kind of came to a head when I realized that was it. We were going to win."

Weight didn't get to play after injuring his shoulder in Game 5. But he donned his uniform and came out for the ceremony, taking his turn with that treasured piece of silverware. He even managed to get it over his head.

Ward wasn't even Carolina's No. 1 goalie at the beginning of the postseason, but he got the call when Martin Gerber struggled in an opening round against Montreal. The rookie wound up winning more games in the playoffs (15) than he did as Gerber's backup during the regular season (14).

And, unlike all those older teammates, Ward didn't have to wait very long for his first cup.

"People say it's your rookie seasons and chances are that it will come again," he said. "But you just never know. You can't predict the future. You've got to take care of the present."

Ward did just that, knocking aside Edmonton's best chance to tie with just under 4 minutes remaining. First, he stopped a shot by Raffi Torres with the left pad. Then, when Pisani got a stick on the rebound, the goalie blocked that one with his skate.

Torres bent over in agony as he rounded the net, as if he realized that Edmonton wouldn't have a better chance to tie it up.

The Oilers have nothing to be ashamed of, becoming the first eighth-seeded team to make the finals under the current format.

But they failed to bring Canada its first champion since Montreal in 1993, or Edmonton its first cup since 1990, when the remnants of the Gretzky-Messier-Coffey-Fuhr dynasty won the last of its five titles in seven years.

"Certainly, that's not the way we wanted to end our year," Pronger said. "It hurts."