Confirmed with Link: Eric Staal signs contract with Canes

[CandyCanes]

If Staal had guys like Svech, Jarvis, Turbo, Guentzel, or Necas as wingers his whole time in Carolina he’d be looked as highly as Aho is now.

 

[Ole Gil]

The resurgence in minnesota was, by his own account, because he actually realized he needed to put in more effort. iirc, the offers he was fielding that offseason, after being a disappointing rental in ny, opened his eyes to what the league opinion was of him and his game at the time.

Good on him accepting it and course correcting.

Staal was a classically trained generic athlete interview. "just need to work hard and prove myself. I just want to give it my best shot, and the good Lord willing, things will work out."

He never said anything real to the media in his career.

 

[DaveG]

You mean the rookie goalie that had Lavi's "pinch all the time" system in front of him couldn't put up good numbers? What a shock.

yeah. Not to mention the team lost basically all their depth to UFA in a post-cup exodus that I don't think we've ever seen since in this league. Weight and Recchi were always going to be rentals, but Cullen and A Ward as well, plus Kaberle to off-season surgery. Essentially an entire 2nd line worth of offense and 2nd pairing of defense, and the options brought in to replace them were a disaster: Belanger, Letowski, Tanabe, with Hutchinson thrust into a bigger position than he should have been. It was enough to make the exodus this off-season look like nothing.

 

[HisIceness]

If Staal had guys like Svech, Jarvis, Turbo, Guentzel, or Necas as wingers his whole time in Carolina he’d be looked as highly as Aho is now.

Talent wise, he never had much support here and it's a shame much of his time here was wasted because of that.

1 good year of Semin on the wing, and IIRC was stapled to Ruutu most of the time. I'm also pretty sure we had 1st line Chad Larose for a season. It really sucks Erik Cole never truly got over his injury (f*** you Orprick)

We also didn't have a good blue-line for much of his time as well so whatever herculean effort he may have had also went to waste because Jay Harrison was the best defensemen.

 

[Blueline Bomber]

If Staal had guys like Svech, Jarvis, Turbo, Guentzel, or Necas as wingers his whole time in Carolina he’d be looked as highly as Aho is now.

If Ward has the last 4 years worth of defense in front of him, he'd have won multiple Vezinas.

 

[To Be Determined]

Staal was a classically trained generic athlete interview. "just need to work hard and prove myself. I just want to give it my best shot, and the good Lord willing, things will work out."

He never said anything real to the media in his career.

Maybe so, but he went from making over 8 million a year, when that was a metric f***ton of cap, to having to accept 3 years at 3.5 per. Even in his low thirties that was kind of insulting. He might not have said what he said to be "real" but that being the best he could get, combined with a clear uptick in on-ice effort, makes it look like some part of him believed it.

 

[Wolfpuck]

There’s our 2C.

 

[Legend338]

If Ward has the last 4 years worth of defense in front of him, he'd have won multiple Vezinas.

If only we could have seen what Staal/Ward could have done with the Dundon money truck supporting the roster.

 

[Blueline Bomber]

Maybe so, but he went from making over 8 million a year, when that was a metric f***ton of cap, to having to accept 3 years at 3.5 per. Even in his low thirties that was kind of insulting. He might not have said what he said to be "real" but that being the best he could get, combined with a clear uptick in on-ice effort, makes it look like some part of him believed it.

I think a lot of people have forgotten just HOW disinterested Staal looked in his later years here. They look at his stats and they seem OK and just chalk it up to a lack of offensive support.

But Staal was absolutely part of the problem at times. He was floating in A LOT of games, which is something you never want to see from your star player, especially if he’s your captain. And while his point totals stayed OK, many of them were garbage points that never affected the outcome of the game.

My biggest memory of that time period was when we were playing Dallas. It was a blowout game, 5-0 Dallas late in the third. The Canes were never in it, and Staal was completely invisible all game. Then he has one shift where he takes the puck behind our net, flies down the ice, and snipes it top corner. 5-1 was the final, and in the postgame thread, all I heard was how great Staal was because he was the only one who scored.

 

[the halleJOKEL]

looking at some of those rosters he was stuck with, it's no wonder they were getting blown out 5-0 by dallas

 

[NotOpie]

He was a below average starter for more of his career than he was above average just looking at the numbers.

Well actually, he was better than average for most of his career.

7 straight seasons of 70 or more points (from 2005-06 - 2011 - 12)
Followed that up with 53 points in 48 game strike shortened season
12 seasons of 20 or more goals (3 seasons of 40 or more goals)
92 goals in his 1st 3 seasons w/Minny

Yes, I'm the pollyanna of the board and yes, I loved Eric Staal. He's one of my son's favorite Hurricane.

And the 2008-2009 run to the ECF, Eric Staal put this team on his back and willed them to the conference final.

He's a great Hurricane and this is well deserved.

Well actually, he was better than average for most of his career.

7 straight seasons of 70 or more points (from 2005-06 - 2011 - 12)
Followed that up with 53 points in 48 game strike shortened season
12 seasons of 20 or more goals (3 seasons of 40 or more goals)
92 goals in his 1st 3 seasons w/Minny

Yes, I'm the pollyanna of the board and yes, I loved Eric Staal. He's one of my son's favorite Hurricane.

And the 2008-2009 run to the ECF, Eric Staal put this team on his back and willed them to the conference final.

He's a great Hurricane and this is well deserved.

Oh, and he only missed 17 games in his 1st 10 years as a Hurricane.

 

[CandyCanes]

Talent wise, he never had much support here and it's a shame much of his time here was wasted because of that.

1 good year of Semin on the wing, and IIRC was stapled to Ruutu most of the time. I'm also pretty sure we had 1st line Chad Larose for a season. It really sucks Erik Cole never truly got over his injury (f*** you Orprick)

We also didn't have a good blue-line for much of his time as well so whatever herculean effort he may have had also went to waste because Jay Harrison was the best defensemen.

Correct me if I’m wrong. But I think he played a ton with Stillman and Cole the year of the cup. Cole was almost a point per game player that season, before the injury. Outside of the one year with Semin + Tlusty, he never had line mates as good as Stillman and peak Cole. Staal put up 45 goals and 100pts next to those guys that year.

 

[Joe McGrath]

Well actually, he was better than average for most of his career.

7 straight seasons of 70 or more points (from 2005-06 - 2011 - 12)
Followed that up with 53 points in 48 game strike shortened season
12 seasons of 20 or more goals (3 seasons of 40 or more goals)
92 goals in his 1st 3 seasons w/Minny

Yes, I'm the pollyanna of the board and yes, I loved Eric Staal. He's one of my son's favorite Hurricane.

And the 2008-2009 run to the ECF, Eric Staal put this team on his back and willed them to the conference final.

He's a great Hurricane and this is well deserved.


Oh, and he only missed 17 games in his 1st 10 years as a Hurricane.

I was referring to Ward….

 

[CandyCanes]

 

[the halleJOKEL]

 

[Joe McGrath]

If they could coordinate it, Minnesota.

Is Mark still playing? With him as the opponent would be another option.

 

[Joe McGrath]

its like Ward wasnt that good

They handed him the starting job with no safety net after the cup run. It was a silly move in hindsight. When he was actually ready for it and he was that damn good, they played him until his back literally gave out against the Penguins in ‘09. Then he blew his MCL a little while after and was never the same. But no matter who they brought in to try to replace him, he outplayed them.

Remember when Dan Ellis had a good week and people on here thought he was going to replace Ward? God that was hilarious.

 

[DaveG]

They handed him the starting job with no safety net after the cup run. It was a silly move in hindsight. When he was actually ready for it and he was that damn good, they played him until his back literally gave out against the Penguins in ‘09. Then he blew his MCL a little while after and was never the same. But no matter who they brought in to try to replace him, he outplayed them.

Remember when Dan Ellis had a good week and people on here thought he was going to replace Ward? God that was hilarious.

sick thing is there were a couple really solid options to back up Ward that were available that off-season. Manny Legace got thrown under the bus in Detroit after their first round upset loss in 6 to the same Oilers that just wouldn't go away against us in the GD CUP FINAL. Johan Hedberg was also available if we had wanted more of a 20-30 game backup instead. But no, they go with John Grahame's drunk ass instead who promptly plays his way out of the league with us. And the options we would throw behind Ward the following seasons after that were all similarly shit: Michael Leighton, Justin Peters, a Brian Boucher half a decade past his prime, Dan Ellis. The only two options that were worth a damn that we had behind Ward the entire time here were Legace the year Manny retired and Dobby, and by the time we had Dobby we had run Ward into the damn ground.

 

[Blueline Bomber]

There was a period of two years (I wanna say the 10-11, 11-12 seasons?) where Ward was facing more shots against than any goalie in the league dating back to Luongo back in his days starting out in Florida.

We gave him zero defensive support and zero backups during his entire career here. Honestly, who was the best defensive pairing we put in front of Ward?

For the record, here’s the defense we had in 10-11 (in terms of ice time):

Corvo-Pitkanen
Gleason-McBain
Harrison-some combination of White/Babchuk/Joslin/Allen

Ward played 74 games. Justin Peters was our backup, started 8 games and won 3 of them.

And here it was in 11-12:

Faulk-Pitkanen
Gleason-Harrison
McBain-Allen

Ward played 68 games. Our backups were Justin Peters and Brian Boucher, who started a combined 14 games and won 3 total.

 

[Navin R Slavin]

Thanks for the memories, Eric. 2006 was unforgettable.

 

[Joe McGrath]

There was a period of two years (I wanna say the 10-11, 11-12 seasons?) where Ward was facing more shots against than any goalie in the league dating back to Luongo back in his days starting out in Florida.

We gave him zero defensive support and zero backups during his entire career here. Honestly, who was the best defensive pairing we put in front of Ward?

For the record, here’s the defense we had in 10-11 (in terms of ice time):

Corvo-Pitkanen
Gleason-McBain
Harrison-some combination of White/Babchuk/Joslin/Allen

Ward played 74 games. Justin Peters was our backup, started 8 games and won 3 of them.

And here it was in 11-12:

Faulk-Pitkanen
Gleason-Harrison
McBain-Allen

Ward played 68 games. Our backups were Justin Peters and Brian Boucher, who started a combined 14 games and won 3 total.

Gleason/Allen was the shutdown pair at the time. I don’t remember the other combos. Jay Harrisson, hell of a guy. So so so bad at defense.

 

[Unsustainable]

I don't put the failures of post 09 on E Staal, it was on PKjr dumpster diving low budgeting that kept Eric from having good talent around him.

 

[Blueline Bomber]

Gleason/Allen was the shutdown pair at the time. I don’t remember the other combos. Jay Harrisson, hell of a guy. So so so bad at defense.

On any given year, we had one or two defensemen that could maybe play in the 3/4 slot of a contending team, then a bunch of 6-7-8 defensemen to fill out the rest. Looking back at these rosters now, it’s unbelievable how bad some of them were.

Another fun fact: The 11-12 season was the same year that Eric Staal seemingly intentionally tried to get Maurice fired. The Canes started the year 8-13-4, which cost Maurice his job. In those 25 games, Eric had 11 points and was pointless in 18 of those games.

After Muller was hired, Staal put up 59 points in the remaining 57 games. He would be held pointless in only 22 of those 57 games.

 

[ElmCityGuy]

Sad thing is other than Aho Eric Staal at age 39 would better than any center on the roster.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Ward was overplayed but he wasnt a very good goalie. He had a 2 great seasons but other than that was below average. Just holds a lot of records because he was overplayed.

Ward was really bad in 06-07 and cost us a chance to do damage in the playoffs with our 2nd best team during E Staal's time here.

Ward was a top-10 goalie for most of his career.