If you look at Carolina's cap situation they have a hurricane of piss heading their way after next season.
Aho, Teravainen, Necas and Seth Jarvis are all up. Those are four forwards you're probably going to see scoring some big numbers, and Aho is the only one anywhere nearly fair paid as of today. They've also got Pesce and Skjei up, and a few other inexpensive depth pieces that have a good chance of being able to demand an extra million more in Martinook, Drury, Noesen and Chatfield.
If they give Staal good money and term, they will be cursing doing so within a year. I'm surprised anyone expected him to return.
I'm also real intrigued to see how they approach this. There's already talk that if they can't agree an extension with Pesce they'll trade him, and if you extrapolate that through all their UFAs, they could be Calgary South pretty quick unless they have a negotiating masterclass.
edit: Not sure why Florida need Staal when they run Barkov-Bennett-Lundell down the gut either.