Taylor Hall goes from No. 1 pick to MVP to Stanley Cup champion with the Hurricanes

Taylor Hall was a No. 1 pick in the draft in 2010. He was the NHL's MVP in 2018.

Now, he is a Stanley Cup champion.

“You never know. You never know what kind of turn your life’s going to take,” Hall said after hoisting the trophy. "It was heavy. It was heavy, unbalanced but amazing.”

No longer in the prime of his career, the 34-year-old Hall was one of the biggest reasons the Carolina Hurricanes won 16 of 19 games during this playoff run.

“He’s fast, he’s physical (and) he makes great plays with the puck,” defenseman Jaccob Slavin said. “He’s selling out to block shots. And so you need that. He’s really just been a complete player this whole playoffs.”

Hall took on a workmanlike role on a line alongside 23-year-old Logan Stankoven and 22-year-old Jackson Blake. That trio led the way through the first three rounds of the playoffs and in the final against Vegas. Hall was a force in every way — generating offense, hammering opponents and sacrificing himself on defense.

“Every line on our team has a physical aspect, and I think it falls on me to play like that,” Hall said. “Florida last year, there wasn’t a guy on their team that didn’t hit and didn’t make it really, really hard to be on the ice against them and you watch and learn.”

With Chicago, Hall played Carolina on Jan. 20, 2025, and liked what he saw in a hard-fought overtime loss.

“I got a first-hand glimpse of the intensity in which we play,” Hall said.

His agent had approached him about the Hurricanes' interest in him and a few days later he joined them as part of the same three-team trade that got them Mikko Rantanen. Initially, Hall was not in shape to play coach Rod Brind'Amour's brand of hockey.

But general manager Eric Tulsky liked what he saw in Hall.

“He brings a blend of speed, skill and heaviness that really fits for us,” Tulsy said. “He has the ability to get pucks into the zone, win pucks along the way and he has the vision and creativity and skill to get pucks to the middle and create scoring chances off it. We spend a lot of time in the offensive zone, and we need players like him who can not just win the battle along the wall but get it to premium ice and create those top-tier chances and he’s been able to do that for us.”

After starting in Edmonton and also playing for New Jersey, Arizona, Buffalo, Boston and Chicago, Carolina felt right.

“I’ve been kind of everywhere,” Hall said. “I got here and felt really at home within a couple days.”

He settled in the Raleigh area, and before the end of April signed a three-year extension worth just over $3 million annually. A lot went into it, including a bad experience as a free agent during the pandemic and being able to drive his dog to his offseason home.

“I was happy here, and I love the way we play and ultimately I saw this as a place that I think we could be here,” Hall said. “That’s what I envisioned, and everything else seemed like it made a lot of sense.”

Brind'Amour as a player was a grinder, a defense-first center who made a living out of stopping players like Hall. As a coach, he knew all about Hall's skill as a winger, his 93-point season in 2017-18 with New Jersey that got him the Hart Trophy and the kind of offensive talent the Hurricanes were getting.

The player who arrived was nothing like that.

“He didn’t bring any of that, ‘I’m an MVP’ and I’m going to do it this way.' It was, ‘What do I have to do?’” Brind'Amour said. “When he first got with us, he was playing like 12 minutes a night. It didn’t matter. It was whatever he has to do to win. That’s refreshing, and that’s good on him.”

Hall helped Carolina reach the 2025 Eastern Conference Final, then he and the team faltered against the defending-champion Panthers. That turned out to be an important lesson for a guy in his 30s thirsty for a title.

“I didn’t play well in that conference final at all, and I think just the way that Florida played and the way that I played, it was a learning experience for me even at 33,” Hall said. “It was just different way to play in the playoffs. There’s a way to play, and there’s a way that the really good teams do it. I took it over the summer and tried to just get better and better.”

Putting that into practice allowed Hall to set a record. His 18 seasons between getting drafted by Edmonton are the most before hoisting the Stanley Cup in league history for a No. 1 pick.

All because Hall made a conscious decision to fit exactly what the Hurricanes needed.

“It’s great for the role that we need him to play,” Slavin said. “I think he still has all the talent in the world, and you witness it night in and night out. He’s been great. And, yeah, has he adapted a little bit to how we play here? I think so. But that just speaks to the player that he is.”

AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

Carolina Hurricanes left wing Taylor Hall celebrates after a win over the Vegas Golden Knights in Game 6 of the NHL hockey Stanley Cup Final series, Sunday, June 14, 2026, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Carolina Hurricanes left wing Taylor Hall, center, attempts a wrap around as Vegas Golden Knights goaltender Carter Hart, left, and defenseman Dylan Coghlan defend during the first period in Game 3 of the NHL hockey Stanley Cup Final series Saturday, June 6, 2026, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Carolina Hurricanes left wing Taylor Hall shoots and scores during the first period in Game 6 of the NHL hockey Stanley Cup Final series against the Vegas Golden Knights, Sunday, June 14, 2026, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Carolina Hurricanes left wing Taylor Hall (71) celebrates after a goal by right wing Jackson Blake (53) during the second period in Game 6 of the NHL hockey Stanley Cup Final series against the Vegas Golden Knights, Sunday, June 14, 2026, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Candice Ward)

Carolina Hurricanes left wing Taylor Hall, center, celebrates his goal with teammates during the first period in Game 6 of the NHL hockey Stanley Cup Final series against the Vegas Golden Knights, Sunday, June 14, 2026, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

MUNICH--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov 10, 2026--

TASKING, a global leader in high-performance embedded software development tools, today announced support across the entire development lifecycle for the new Infineon AURIX RC1 family of microcontrollers. Engineers can now compile ( VX-toolset ), debug ( winIDEA and BlueBox ), and verify (LDRA) AURIX RC1-based systems from one unified toolchain with Agentic AI built-in to accelerate development and the path to certification of complex, multicore automotive systems.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20261110215415/en/

Unveiled by Infineon at electronica 2026, the AURIX RC1 microcontroller family is redefining real-time compute and control for next-generation SDV, SDX, and Physical AI applications. Built on Infineon’s future-ready RISC-V multicore real-time cluster architecture, AURIX RC1 brings the next level of performance, scalability, safety and security, power efficiency, connectivity and edge AI to electronic designs.

Engineers migrating from TriCore and Arm to RISC-V can use the TASKING toolchain to change architectures without changing their toolchain. Teams moving from TriCore can keep their existing tool investments, CI/CD pipelines and know-how – with no retraining or rebuilding of workflows. Teams coming from Arm get one toolchain across Arm and RISC-V, for a faster start on AURIX RC1-based system development and easy code reuse across projects.

“We consider the introduction of our new AURIX RC1 family much beyond the new microcontroller architecture itself,” said Thomas Schneid, Vice President Software and Ecosystem Management at Infineon. “Our new open architecture based on RISC-V comes with a growing holistic ecosystem. Together with partners like TASKING, we are creating an open and scalable software, tools and services environment that enables customers to build on their existing investments, simplify migration and accelerate innovation on AURIX RC1.”

Compliant Software, Faster

With the TASKING unified toolchain, engineers can rely on one partner for AURIX RC1 software development. This simplifies tool integration and supplier management rather than working with multiple vendors since license management is centralized, tools are already integrated, and one field application engineer (FAE) team supports the entire development workflow. A unified toolchain also lowers total cost of ownership and reduces overhead for engineering, safety and procurement teams.

By combining compile, debug, and verification in one unified development environment, the TASKING toolchain helps teams deliver software that meets ISO 26262, and ISO/SAE 21434 requirements more efficiently. Because the TASKING toolchain supports the AURIX RC1 Virtual Prototypes, development teams can start evaluation, design, analysis, testing, and verification of software before silicon is even available. This enables earlier detection of system issues and supports faster resolution of issues with less cost and risk, as well as shortens the path to certification evidence.

OEMs and Tier-1s can also benefit from faster build-fix-debug cycles with less manual effort through agentic AI across the toolchain. New AI skills for the VX-toolset, available with the December release, bring TASKING toolchain expertise – build, diagnostics, map-file and LSL analysis, startup code – into a VS Code-based environment via MCP, while the qualified tools remain unchanged. For debugging, the TASKING winIDEA AI Kit has already shown at least 50% effort reduction in three use cases. Throughout, TASKING follows one principle: AI assists, engineers decide - critical actions require human approval.

For example, engineers can use Agentic AI to evaluate Worst-Case Execution Time (WCET) for functional safety by assisting in creating test scripts, compiling with different configuration options, running different combinations of tasks to assess multicore timing coupling, and identifying then mitigating potential timing issues to help ensure deterministic, real-time system behavior.

“As a trusted partner with Infineon for more than 40 years, TASKING has worked directly with Infineon to design tools for AURIX from the inside out,” said Christoph Herzog, Co-CEO & CTO, TASKING. “OEMs can be confident their toolchain is optimized for the silicon, aligned with Infineon's software ecosystem, and designed to accelerate and simplify even the most complex automotive designs. In addition, our guiding principle, ‘AI assists, engineers decide,’ enables us to support Agentic AI across the toolchain while maintaining functional safety and simplifying certification.”

Four Decades of Partnership

TASKING’s support for AURIX RC1 builds on more than 40 years of partnership with Infineon. TASKING provided the first toolsets on the market for C166 and TriCore, has been part of five Infineon DRIVECORE™ bundles, including the most downloaded DRIVECORE TC4 VT1 bundle (TASKING / Vector), and received Infineon’s "Open Standard Advocate" award for its RISC-V compiler work. TASKING was also among the first ecosystem partners working with Infineon’s RISC-V SDK and virtual prototype.

Availability

The new TASKING VX-toolset for RISC-V supporting the AURIX RC1 family will be available in December 2026. Qualification of TASKING’s RISC-V toolchain is planned for 2027. With its support for TriCore, Arm, and RH850, TASKING has a strong track record of independently certifying its compilers to reduce the time, cost, and risk associated with software tool qualification in safety-critical projects.

Infineon plans to include TASKING compiler technology in its DRIVECORE software portfolio for AURIX RC1. Having a pre-integrated, tested combination of Infineon software and TASKING tools jumpstarts development as developers have an integrated, ready-to-use development path from day one.

See TASKING Live at electronica 2026

Visit the TASKING demo at the Infineon booth (hall C3, booth 502) at electronica 2026 to see the AI-assisted workflow along the V-cycle with the unified TASKING toolchain. Request an evaluation license or book a migration workshop at https://www.tasking.com/contact

About TASKING

TASKING is a leading provider of embedded software development tools that compile, debug and test. These tools enable embedded software engineers to develop reliable, high-performance applications for a safer future. Founded in 1977, TASKING is committed to expanding its portfolio to deliver a single-supplier, certifiable tool chain. As a trusted partner focused on customer need, expertise and a commitment to sustainability, TASKING and its integrated tool chain accelerate the software development lifecycle for safety and security critical applications in industries such as automotive, aerospace and defense, industrial, medical, robotics and others.

For more information, visit our website or follow us on LinkedIn.

TASKING’s unified toolchain helps OEMs and Tier-1s starting new designs or migrating from TriCore and Arm win back time, reduce costs and deliver functional safety-compliant software faster.