Taylor Hall and Seth Jones started the 2025 calendar year as teammates on a Chicago Blackhawks team mired in a multiyear rebuild and sitting at the bottom of the NHL standings.
Now they're squaring off for a trip to the Stanley Cup Final.
The Carolina Hurricanes traded for Hall in January, while the Florida Panthers acquired Jones ahead of the March trade deadline. Their new teams — Hall with a perennial playoff team, Jones with the reigning Cup champion — have taken them on a postseason run that now includes a reunion in the Eastern Conference final with Game 2 on Thursday night on Hall's home ice.
“It's not something that we ever talked about really," Hall said. I didn't know if he'd be traded. I knew I would probably get dealt at some point. But just where we were — being at the bottom of the standings, being on a team, an organization, that the pressure to win wasn't really there overall — to where we are now, speaking for him, I'm sure he's excited. And so am I.”
Hall, a 33-year-old forward, is in his 15th NHL season as a former No. 1 overall draft pick (2010) and 2018 Hart Trophy winner as league MVP. Jones, a 30-year-old defenseman, is in his 12th NHL season as a past all-star and No. 4 overall draft pick in 2013.
Before this year, Hall and Jones had each won just two postseason series, one being shortened 2020 qualifier series amid the pandemic. They've matched that now with Carolina and Florida winning two rounds to set up this rematch of the 2023 conference final won by the Panthers.
It's quite a turn from months earlier with the Blackhawks, who have just one playoff appearance (2020) in eight seasons.
Chicago acquired Jones from Columbus in July 2021, then acquired Hall from Boston in June 2023 amid what has become a nadir for an Original Six franchise. From the 2021-22 through the 2023-24 seasons, Chicago ranked last among 32 NHL teams in points (179 points) and points percentage (.364), next to last in wins (77 out of 246 games, ahead of only San Jose's 73) and last in goals scored (593), according to Sportradar.
As New Year's Day arrived this year, Chicago was last in the league with 26 points and .342 points percentage amid a rebuild centered around 2023 No. 1 overall pick Connor Bedard. That made both Hall and Jones were appealing to contenders seeking help.
“It was just a timeline of that organization, and nothing against them, I think they're going to be very successful in the future,” Jones said. "And they wanted to build from the ground up, and there's nothing against that, nothing wrong with that. But in the case of me and Taylor, we were obviously pretty close there in Chicago, kind of in the same situation.
“So we just wanted to give ourselves an opportunity to play on a contending team, to win a Cup, just to have that feeling of playing important games.”
Hall joined Carolina in the January blockbuster that brought Mikko Rantanen to Raleigh for a brief stay that ended at the deadline. He was making $6 million with free-agency looming, but signed a three-year, $9.5 million extension through 2027-28 in April.
A fixture on the Hurricanes' second line, Hall had two goals and four assists in 11 postseason games. His first goal started Carolina's comeback from a 3-0 deficit to win the clinching Game 5 in the first round against New Jersey. His second was a third-period breakaway in a Game 4 win against conference top seed Washington in Round 2.
“Winning it all is amazing, but it’s a ride too,” said Carolina captain Jordan Staal, a Cup winner in 2009 in Pittsburgh. “It’s so enjoyable to just go day-to-day battling with your buddies. there’s something about that that gives me chills every time I talk about it and gets you excited. I’m sure Hallsy’s feeling that and excited about the future here and how it’s all going to play out.”
The Panthers acquired Jones, who is under contract through 2030, in March for another title push. Through the series opener, he had three goals and three assists in the postseason while joining Gustav Forsling at plus-7 to lead Florida defensemen.
Jones came through with a key first-period play in Tuesday's 5-2 win, poking away Shayne Gostisbehere's pass to deny Carolina a prime chance. It was a glimpse of how general manager Bill Zito's work paying off in Florida's third straight conference-final appearance.
“The game actually simplifies in the playoffs more than it expands,” coach Paul Maurice said. “Teams get to the bare bones of what they do and they just do it over and over again. So he’s getting cleaner reps and reads on the way up the ice, and I think that’s helped him an awful lot.”
AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl
Florida Panthers' Seth Jones (3) states with the puck against the Carolina Hurricanes during the first period of Game 1 of the NHL hockey Stanley Cup Eastern Conference finals in Raleigh, N.C., Tuesday, May 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Karl DeBlaker)
Carolina Hurricanes' Taylor Hall (71) controls the puck against the Florida Panthers during the second period of Game 1 of the NHL hockey Stanley Cup Eastern Conference finals in Raleigh, N.C., Tuesday, May 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Karl DeBlaker)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has arrived at a delicate moment as he weighs whether to order a U.S. military response against the Iranian government as it continues a violent crackdown on protests that have left nearly 600 dead and led to the arrests of thousands across the country.
The U.S. president has repeatedly threatened Tehran with military action if his administration found the Islamic Republic was using deadly force against antigovernment protesters. It's a red line that Trump has said he believes Iran is “starting to cross” and has left him and his national security team weighing “very strong options.”
But the U.S. military — which Trump has warned Tehran is “locked and loaded” — appears, at least for the moment, to have been placed on standby mode as Trump ponders next steps, saying that Iranian officials want to have talks with the White House.
“What you’re hearing publicly from the Iranian regime is quite different from the messages the administration is receiving privately, and I think the president has an interest in exploring those messages,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Monday. “However, with that said, the president has shown he’s unafraid to use military options if and when he deems necessary, and nobody knows that better than Iran.”
Hours later, Trump announced on social media that he would slap 25% tariffs on countries doing business with Tehran “effective immediately” — his first action aimed at penalizing Iran for the protest crackdown, and his latest example of using tariffs as a tool to force friends and foes on the global stage to bend to his will.
China, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Brazil and Russia are among economies that do business with Tehran. The White House declined to offer further comment or details about the president’s tariff announcement.
The White House has offered scant details on Iran's outreach for talks, but Leavitt confirmed that the president's special envoy Steve Witkoff will be a key player engaging Tehran.
Meanwhile, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and key White House National Security Council officials began meeting Friday to develop a “suite of options,” from a diplomatic approach to military strikes, to present to Trump in the coming days, according to a U.S. official familiar with the internal administration deliberations. The official was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Trump told reporters Sunday evening that a “meeting is being set up” with Iranian officials but cautioned that “we may have to act because of what’s happening before the meeting.”
“We’re watching the situation very carefully,” Trump said.
Demonstrations in Iran continue, but analysts say it remains unclear just how long protesters will remain on the street.
An internet blackout imposed by Tehran makes it hard for protesters to understand just how widespread the demonstrations have become, said Vali Nasr, a State Department adviser during the early part of the Obama administration, and now professor of international affairs and Middle East studies at Johns Hopkins University.
“It makes it very difficult for news from one city or pictures from one city to incense or motivate action in another city,” Nasr said. “The protests are leaderless, they're organization-less. They are actually genuine eruptions of popular anger. And without leadership and direction and organization, such protests, not just in Iran, everywhere in the world — it’s very difficult for them to sustain themselves.”
Meanwhile, Trump is dealing with a series of other foreign policy emergencies around the globe.
It's been just over a week since the U.S. military launched a successful raid to arrest Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro and remove him from power. The U.S. continues to mass an unusually large number of troops in the Caribbean Sea.
Trump is also focused on trying to get Israel and Hamas onto the second phase of a peace deal in Gaza and broker an agreement between Russia and Ukraine to end the nearly four-year war in Eastern Europe.
But advocates urging Trump to take strong action against Iran say this moment offers an opportunity to further diminish the theocratic government that's ruled the country since the Islamic revolution in 1979.
The demonstrations are the biggest Iran has seen in years — protests spurred by the collapse of Iranian currency that have morphed into a larger test of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's repressive rule.
Iran, through the country’s parliamentary speaker, has warned that the U.S. military and Israel would be “legitimate targets” if Washington uses force to protect demonstrators.
Some of Trump's hawkish allies in Washington are calling on the president not to miss the opportunity to act decisively against a vulnerable Iranian government that they argue is reeling after last summer's 12-day war with Israel and battered by U.S. strikes in June on key Iranian nuclear sites.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said on social media Monday that the moment offers Trump the chance to show that he's serious about enforcing red lines. Graham alluded to former Democratic President Barack Obama in 2012 setting a red line on the use of chemical weapons by Syria's Bashar Assad against his own people — only not to follow through with U.S. military action after the then-Syrian leader crossed that line the following year.
“It is not enough to say we stand with the people of Iran,” Graham said. “The only right answer here is that we act decisively to protect protesters in the street — and that we’re not Obama — proving to them we will not tolerate their slaughter without action.”
Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, another close Trump ally, said the “goal of every Western leader should be to destroy the Iranian dictatorship at this moment of its vulnerability.”
“In a few weeks either the dictatorship will be gone or the Iranian people will have been defeated and suppressed and a campaign to find the ringleaders and kill them will have begun,” Gingrich said in an X post. “There is no middle ground.”
Indeed, Iranian authorities have managed to snuff out rounds of mass protests before, including the “Green Movement” following the disputed election in 2009 and the “woman, life, freedom” protests that broke out after 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died in custody of the state’s morality police in 2022.
Trump and his national security team have already begun reviewing options for potential military action and he is expected to continue talks with his team this week.
Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior director of the Iran program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a hawkish Washington think tank, said “there is a fast-diminishing value to official statements by the president promising to hold the regime accountable, but then staying on the sidelines.”
Trump, Taleblu noted, has shown a desire to maintain “maximum flexibility rooted in unpredictability” as he deals with adversaries.
“But flexibility should not bleed into a policy of locking in or bailing out an anti-American regime which is on the ropes at home and has a bounty on the president’s head abroad,” he added.
Activists take part in a rally supporting protesters in Iran at Lafayette Park, across from the White House, in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt speaks with reporters at the White House, Monday, Jan. 12, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President Donald Trump waves after arriving on Air Force One from Florida, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, at Joint Base Andrews, Md. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
