By Signa Butler

If Rod Brind'Amour worked in a factory, he would be on the job before sunrise.

Once he punched in, Brind'Amour would check out the machinery to make sure it was safe and working. He would work through his coffee break, but take time to treat his co-workers to lunch. In the afternoon, he'd show the new guy the ropes. And then when his buddy needed time off to take care of his sick kid, Brind'Amour would work a double.

Rod Brind'Amour recorded 70 points for the Carollina Hurricanes this season, his best production since the 1990s. (Getty Images)

This is a day in the life of Rod Brind'Amour, the leader and heart and soul of the Carolina Hurricanes.

The NHL club's captain is enjoying his best statistical season in eight years, posting 70 points in what has been a franchise-best campaign for Carolina.

While his scoresheet contributions are significant – especially for a 35-year-old in his 18th NHL season – it is the grunt work that defines Brind'Amour as the game's most unsung leader.

Brind'Amour led all NHL forwards in average ice time with 24 minutes per game, all of them full-out minutes often against the opposing team's top lines. He also led the league with 2,145 faceoffs taken, nearly 350 more than San Jose star Joe Thornton – a leading candidate for the Hart Trophy as the league's top player– and finished third in faceoff percentage.

In between his defensive responsibilities and faceoff duties, he also worked his usual magic on the penalty kill and even on the power play, where he scored a career-high 19 goals.

But perhaps the truest test for a great leader is how he can make those around him better. Linemate Justin Williams has had a career-best season, and ditto for Matt Cullen and Erik Cole. Even the poise Eric Staal has shown in his 100-point rookie season can be traced back to Brind'Amour.

Renaissance in Carolina

Suffice to say that 18 years into his career, Brind'Amour is suddenly in his prime again. His re-emergence as one of the league's premier forwards has many hockey experts wondering what triggered it.

Brind'Amour laughs at the talk. There is no magic potion that rejuvenated his game, he says; in fact, there's no secret to it at all.

"It surprises me because to me it's such a simple answer – it's just that we got such a better team. I'm playing with much better players, I had a lot more opportunity with more power play time and that's where you get the bulk of your points.

"I'm surprised by the way everyone is talking about it, but it's a real simple answer."

For one of the game's most revered warriors, Brind'Amour had a tentative start to the game. As a child, he twice stopped playing because he didn't like being yelled at.

"I quit. I started and like every kid in Canada, you had to play hockey. And I just didn't enjoy it," he said. "Then I realized I didn't have any friends because everyone was away playing hockey on the weekends."

Soon enough, Brind'Amour was back in the blades and taking the road well travelled by many future stars, to Notre Dame in Wilcox, Sask.

"Everything just kind of blossomed there. I got great coaching with Barry MacKenzie, one of the best coaches I've ever seen, and in that whole environment – playing hockey every day, studying. It just focused me to get to where I am now."

After a year at Michigan State, he broke into the NHL with St. Louis, but the Blues were then Brett Hull's team. From there, it was onto Philadelphia where Brind'Amour regularly had 30-goal seasons but played in the shadow of Eric Lindros. Then it was on to Carolina where he deferred to Ron Francis.

Compared to Messier, Yzerman

With Francis retired, Brind'Amour defers to no one now. The Hurricanes are his team and he leads with authority.

"It's like Stevie Y. It's like Mess. You feel what that room is going to be like when you see what type of person he is and how he plays," said forward Doug Weight, who was traded to Carolina on Jan. 30. "... That's what leadership is. You put on you sleeve what your team is going to be like when you get in that room and that's what it's like here."

It's the most tired of clichés but Brind'Amour leads by example. He wouldn't ask his teammates to do anything he hasn't done himself. He certainly wouldn't want them to experience two crushing defeats in the Stanley Cup final – one with Philadelphia in 1997 and another with Carolina in 2002, the latter followed by two years out of the playoffs.

Those tough times tested Brind'Amour's mettle on many levels.

"[Retirement] definitely crossed my mind, but I think for other reasons, not because of lack of success teamwise. But it definitely wears on you," he said.

"Coming into a season like this when you have a lot of success, you think you could play forever. That's the key. You see some guys late their careers go to new teams and they play a lot longer because the team is good. Winning is fun, it makes coming to work fun and that's what we have here."

Tested by personal problems

Hanging over his head in those non-playoff years in Carolina was a divorce that affected him more deeply than even Brind'Amour knew at the time.

"I didn't realize at the time how difficult it was ... coming to the game you're worrying about so many things that I don't want to get into, but people who have been through a divorce know what I'm talking about," he said. "You've got kids to consider. A marriage should be about partnership and when you don't have that, it's very, very tough. To not have someone to bounce things off, it just wears on you. It's a daily grind."

Brind'Amour says he has a great relationship with his kids – something he treasures above anything else – and now that family matters have been settled, he can concentrate a lot more on the game.

"It seems like he's enjoying himself a little more on and off the ice," winger Kevyn Adams says of his teammate. "On the ice he's so intense, he does so much, he works so hard. But he's seems to have a little smile on his face again on and off the ice. He's been great."

Anything to win

It's been four long years since Brind'Amour felt the adrenaline of the Stanley Cup atmosphere and is set to do whatever it takes to get the Hurricanes deep in the playoffs.

That means playing plenty of minutes, through bouts of pain and injury, all the while shutting down the opposing team's stars.

"This is playoff hockey. This is what it's all about," he said, with his eyes wide with excitement. "You play all year to get to this point where the excitement level is what it is and every game and every shift means so much. You have to enjoy that."

So does he think this will be his final crack at a Stanley Cup?

"Everyday, everyday [I think about that]," he said. "I think that's one of the things that motivates me. Going through last year with the lockout, I think it opened the eyes of a lot of players how grateful we are to be to play the game for a living.

"The one thing that I've never done is taken a day in this league for granted.

"I know I don't have a lot of years left and who knows if I'll ever get a chance to play in the playoffs again or anything. I know I'm going to make the best of it."

with files from CBC's The Headliner