Your opinions on Eric Staal

Identity404

I'm not superstitious, but I am a little stitious
Nov 5, 2005
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I don't doubt that he really sincerely wants the team to be in the playoffs. I really sincerely want to make a million dollars a year. Does that mean I am doing the things necessary for it to become a reality?

And how do we know if Staal does or does not sincerely give it his all to make that happen?

I think some expect too much from him. Eric is not an extremely skilled player. His success in this league is largely a part of his physical attributes and hardwork. What if Staal is actually giving 110% (channeling his inner lou ferrigno)? It's really impossible to know. That was my point.

 

tarheelhockey

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Do you work hard at your job on a daily basis?

I work hard, sure, but not as hard as I possibly can. I am self-aware enough to admit that. I have close colleagues who work much harder than I do, and they're probably going to make a lot more money than I will over the long haul. That's not exactly a point of pride for me -- but it chalks up largely to the difference between them being more career-oriented, whereas I am more focused on developments in my personal and family life. Hell, I'm sitting here typing this when I could be making a work-related phone call...

Am I ever going to work my way up to being a millionaire? Probably not, and I've accepted that as the cost of not sacrificing my personal life so I can go hardcore at work 24/7.

Eric Staal, on the other hand, is in a position where he is expected to go hardcore all of the time. That's his job, it's why he's paid the way he is. It's really painfully obvious that -- while he might put in the hours of training and conditioning and media relations which are required of a high-paid NHL captain -- for whatever reason he doesn't have the drive right now that would push him past a hungrier player of equal talent.

I don't blame him for cashing the checks that the Hurricanes have handed him, nor for the significant likelihood that he's simply lost his edge as he moved past the "young and hungry" phase of his life. But I also don't think there's anything unfair about calling a spade a spade... he can pay lip service to a desire to win, but he doesn't do the things that he personally needs to be doing in order for wins to start happening.

And how do we know if Staal does or does not sincerely give it his all to make that happen?

I think some expect too much from him. Eric is not an extremely skilled player. His success in this league is largely a part of his physical attributes and hardwork. What if Staal is actually giving 110% (channeling his inner lou ferrigno)? It's really impossible to know. That was my point.

It's not impossible to know, given the fact that we can visibly see his lack of effort. It's not like we're having a "he would skate faster if he worked his legs like Chad" kind of discussion. We're talking about "he could have very easily taken a stride to break up that pass, but instead he coasted and watched the opponent score, then hung his head and drifted back to the bench".

And we're not talking about one game or one stretch of games. It was the entire season, and a significant portion of the last couple of seasons before that. I understand that players have to conserve energy (and for good reason) but that's not what Staal does. He simply drifts around as a spectator instead of actively working to regain possession of the puck and turn it the other way. That's a matter of personal hunger and desire, and it's as plain as day.
 

Identity404

I'm not superstitious, but I am a little stitious
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It's not impossible to know, given the fact that we can visibly see his lack of effort. It's not like we're having a "he would skate faster if he worked his legs like Chad" kind of discussion. We're talking about "he could have very easily taken a stride to break up that pass, but instead he coasted and watched the opponent score, then hung his head and drifted back to the bench".

And we're not talking about one game or one stretch of games. It was the entire season, and a significant portion of the last couple of seasons before that. I understand that players have to conserve energy (and for good reason) but that's not what Staal does. He simply drifts around as a spectator instead of actively working to regain possession of the puck and turn it the other way. That's a matter of personal hunger and desire, and it's as plain as day.

Yes, but like I said in my first post we can't know for sure that what you are calling visible lack of effort is really from lack of effort or due to other reasons like injury or conditioning.

Don't you think a serious off-seaon knee injury could have played a little part in what has been his worst season of his career? In previous seasons where we get on him for lack of effort it is usually due to his notorious slow starts, which I contend is mostly mental for him.

Eric leads this team in TOI as a forward every year. You can say he could have very easily taken a stride to break up that pass, but he also could have been completely gassed because it was the end of a double shift.

BTW i'm not completely disagreeing with what you are saying, just playing devils advocate :)
 
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What the Faulk

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I'm not going to even begin to get into this subjective discussion about effort again, but he did mention that his knee wasn't 100% until Christmas. So it was probably a little of everything with him last year.
 

Blueline Bomber

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There's always an excuse for Staal, even some that don't excuse him, but are used anyway. "Being a slow starter" is a good one.

So he rarely makes an impact in the first 15-20 games of a season, but that's just the way he is, so it's OK?

Sounds like the excuse that used to be given about his faceoff percentage...until the team started cracking down on him about it, and suddenly, it's above average.
 

Novacane

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There's always an excuse for Staal, even some that don't excuse him, but are used anyway. "Being a slow starter" is a good one.

So he rarely makes an impact in the first 15-20 games of a season, but that's just the way he is, so it's OK?

Sounds like the excuse that used to be given about his faceoff percentage...until the team started cracking down on him about it, and suddenly, it's above average.

I don't see how you view people saying he is "a slow starter" as being an excuse at all. It has always been part of a criticism of Eric. Saying otherwise is just ridiculous. I don't think anyone likes that part of his game and wants it to continue.
 

tarheelhockey

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Yes, but like I said in my first post we can't know for sure that what you are calling visible lack of effort is really from lack of effort or due to other reasons like injury or conditioning.

...

Eric leads this team in TOI as a forward every year. You can say he could have very easily taken a stride to break up that pass, but he also could have been completely gassed because it was the end of a double shift.

Again, there are times when we should really give players that benefit of the doubt. And there are times when every player gets caught trying to save energy and ends up looking bad ("controller disconnected").

With Eric, it's become both habitual and flagrant. The guy is killing this team on a regular basis by floating around and swinging his stick carelessly at opponents when he could take literally 1 or 2 strides and change the whole dynamic.

If you want to talk about it in more objective terms, how about the fact that he had 12 tripping penalties when the next-worst player in the league had 8? Or the fact that he had the third-most penalties of any forward in the league when you exclude roughing calls? That's distinctly symptomatic of a player who's not mentally engaged with the game -- and it's not even like Alex Semin, who gets a lot of penalties in the offensive zone because he forechecks aggressively. Staal simply gets nailed with penalties because he cheats on defense.

Or, do a CTRL+F on the word "Eric" in each page of the Subjective +/- thread. There are 25 minuses to choose from, and a good portion of them are cringe-worthy cases of Eric being the main reason that a key goal was scored against us. The games on 10/13, 10/24, 10/25, 11/1, 12/12, 2/8, 3/2, 3/7, 3/15, and 3/25 all involved one or more critical goals being scored against us not because Eric was physically incapable of making a defensive play, but because he failed to position himself correctly and make a simple stride or stick-lift that was easily within his reach. That's basic defense for an NHL center -- I'm not even picking on things like lost faceoffs, or being part of a general defensive breakdown.

Put the penalties, the flagrant lack of defensive effort, and his offensive underperformance together... how many points in the standings did it cost us this year? 5? 10? We only needed 10 to make the playoffs... did Eric REALLY want to make the playoffs or did he just want to make the playoffs?
 

Blueline Bomber

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I don't see how you view people saying he is "a slow starter" as being an excuse at all. It has always been part of a criticism of Eric. Saying otherwise is just ridiculous. I don't think anyone likes that part of his game and wants it to continue.

Um....

Yes, but like I said in my first post we can't know for sure that what you are calling visible lack of effort is really from lack of effort or due to other reasons like injury or conditioning.

Don't you think a serious off-seaon knee injury could have played a little part in what has been his worst season of his career? In previous seasons where we get on him for lack of effort it is usually due to his notorious slow starts, which I contend is mostly mental for him.

Eric leads this team in TOI as a forward every year. You can say he could have very easily taken a stride to break up that pass, but he also could have been completely gassed because it was the end of a double shift.

BTW i'm not completely disagreeing with what you are saying, just playing devils advocate :)

That sounds like an excuse to me. He started off terribly because of his injury this year, and he's had slow starts in his career because it's a mental thing, and yadda, yadda, yadda.

Maybe that's simply the way Staal is. A guy that is talented enough to coast by on talent alone and because of that, he rarely puts forth the effort needed to win in this league. There's nothing wrong with that, per se, but it's not someone we should be expecting to lead the team anywhere.
 

Joe McGrath

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Sounds like the excuse that used to be given about his faceoff percentage...until the team started cracking down on him about it, and suddenly, it's above average.

What in the world are you getting at with this comment? Are you trying to use an example where Staal improved a deficiency in his game at the behest of the coaches (whose job that is) as a negative? That can't be possible, can it?
 

Novacane

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Um....



That sounds like an excuse to me. He started off terribly because of his injury this year, and he's had slow starts in his career because it's a mental thing, and yadda, yadda, yadda.

Maybe that's simply the way Staal is. A guy that is talented enough to coast by on talent alone and because of that, he rarely puts forth the effort needed to win in this league. There's nothing wrong with that, per se, but it's not someone we should be expecting to lead the team anywhere.
So one person's post invalidates all of the previous discussions about Eric and poor starts? Are you saying his knee injury isn't a valid excuse this year when Eric and JR said exactly the opposite? We'll see next year I guess. Oh, or will the new coach be the reason for Staal's success early next year.
 

Blueline Bomber

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What in the world are you getting at with this comment? Are you trying to use an example where Staal improved a deficiency in his game at the behest of the coaches (whose job that is) as a negative? That can't be possible, can it?

Staal improved a deficiency in his game, only when it became too big of an issue to ignore and only after the organization made it clear that he would need to improve that aspect.

Perhaps it's just me, but if I was the #1 center on a team, the captain, etc., and I was putting up a faceoff percentage in the low 40s, it would be an aspect of the game I'd want to improve on almost immediately. Especially given that I would have two of the best faceoff aficionados over the past couple decades at my disposal.

Instead, it took Staal five years to reach anywhere close to acceptable, and again, only after the organization called him out on it. That's partially on the organization/coaches for not making it a bigger issue earlier, but some desire to improve one's game would have helped Staal (and the team) a lot.
 

Joe McGrath

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Ok, so you did turn an obvious positive into a negative. Bravo. That's quite an accomplishment.
 

Identity404

I'm not superstitious, but I am a little stitious
Nov 5, 2005
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I'm not going to even begin to get into this subjective discussion about effort again.

Bingo, this was basically my whole point. I was just trying to play devils advocate. I don't think it's possible to gauge or measure a players effort. It is entirely subjective.

This will be my last comment on this subject. Happy to sir the pot though.
 

Buenos Necas

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I didn't bother reading through the whole thread, we've all had this discussion before. Bottom line, we're in a league where very few teams have 8's, 9's, let alone 10's when it comes to first line centers. I think we have a solid 7 with Eric, who probably could be an 8 or 9 if everything came together. But the fact is most teams are stuck with a 5 or 6, so at the end of the day we're better off with Staal right now than without him. And we wouldn't win any trade involving him either, the team trading away the premier player never seems to be better for it in the long run.

The most baffling part for me, is just a year ago he was coming off his best "season" since 05-06, scoring just over a PPG clip. What's changed over the past calendar year, other than the obvious with his knee injury, and what's preventing him from getting back to that form?
 

What the Faulk

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On-ice shooting percentage dropped from 11.8% (half a percentage point better than Crosby's career average) to 7.8% (half a percentage point lower than Staal's career average) and second lowest since 2008-09. These things happen. Staal is inconsistent, more so than many other players it seems, but he's generally good for around 75 points. He isn't a superstar, but at times he can play like one. It's maddening, but it's unfair to say he should be able to sustain that over the course of a season. Few players can.

Getting rid of him means you need to make up 75 points over the course of the season, or lessen points scored against you. Can one 9M player do that? Can two 4.5M players do that? If you're allowed to cherry pick off any roster, sure. But who's realistically available that can fill what he brings? Therein lies your problem.

WARNING, "Advanced" Stats talk: he actually had his best year possession wise since 08-09, by a good bit. Points/60 were on par with 2011-12, and better than 10-11. Obviously this didn't translate to much this year, but if he keeps out-chancing opponents, he will rebound. And I don't expect he'll continue to suck on the powerplay like he did under Muller.
 

Joe McGrath

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Staal improved a deficiency in his game, only when it became too big of an issue to ignore and only after the organization made it clear that he would need to improve that aspect.

Perhaps it's just me, but if I was the #1 center on a team, the captain, etc., and I was putting up a faceoff percentage in the low 40s, it would be an aspect of the game I'd want to improve on almost immediately. Especially given that I would have two of the best faceoff aficionados over the past couple decades at my disposal.

Instead, it took Staal five years to reach anywhere close to acceptable, and again, only after the organization called him out on it. That's partially on the organization/coaches for not making it a bigger issue earlier, but some desire to improve one's game would have helped Staal (and the team) a lot.

Since we're just making blind assumptions because we can, maybe losing 90% of the face-offs in practice to Brind'Amour everyday did nothing for his development in that department, since as soon as he retired Staal's % went from 41-48% up to where it sits now between 52-53 the next season.
 

Blueline Bomber

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So many assumptions.

Right, I forgot we're a big believer of coincidences on this board.

Serious question: Besides the aforementioned faceoff percentage, what part of Eric's game has noticeably improved since 05-06? He's not producing at a higher clip, he's not more disciplined, he's not improved defensively, he's not grown as a leader...

Actually, scratch that last one. I will say that he does not dive and whine to the officials as much now as he did back then. Kudos to him for that.
 

tarheelhockey

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The most baffling part for me, is just a year ago he was coming off his best "season" since 05-06, scoring just over a PPG clip. What's changed over the past calendar year, other than the obvious with his knee injury, and what's preventing him from getting back to that form?

A couple of things that jump immediately to mind:

1) In the half-season, he played almost exclusively (80%+ of his ES minutes) with Semin and Tlusty, two pretty good defensive wingers and good possession players. This season he played only about half as much with those guys, and often the line was only 2/3rds complete. The replacement winger was usually the likes of Skinner or Ruutu, guys who don't cover their center defensively and in Skinner's case, doesn't play much of a possession game.

2) Despite his TOI dipping slightly, he played about 60% more real minutes in 2013-14 than in the previous season. The grind of the regular season was a factor this year, and he has never seemed to do well with that.
 

nobuddy

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WARNING, "Advanced" Stats talk: he actually had his best year possession wise since 08-09, by a good bit. Points/60 were on par with 2011-12, and better than 10-11. Obviously this didn't translate to much this year, but if he keeps out-chancing opponents, he will rebound. And I don't expect he'll continue to suck on the powerplay like he did under Muller.

All you need to know right hurr.
 

Finlandia WOAT

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Right, I forgot we're a big believer of coincidences on this board.

Serious question: Besides the aforementioned faceoff percentage, what part of Eric's game has noticeably improved since 05-06? He's not producing at a higher clip, he's not more disciplined, he's not improved defensively, he's not grown as a leader...

Actually, scratch that last one. I will say that he does not dive and whine to the officials as much now as he did back then. Kudos to him for that.

His defense has definitely improved. Staal is one of two players since the invention of the stat to score 100 points and still end up a minus- in his 05-06 season. He was heavily sheltered at ES, with Brind'Amour and Matt Cullen getting the harder assignments.

He used to be brutal defensively because he was young and unused to the speed of the NHL game. Now it is mostly an effort issue (which most people seem to understand).

As for scoring, Staal has maintained a very consistent level (75-80 points) since 06-07 despite league wide scoring going down thanks to less powerplays called. As for his offensive game itself, have you forgotten the days of Captain Wrap-Around?

As for how he has grown as a leader, unless you have had access to the locker room for the better part of the last decade, how the **** could you make a conclusion on something like that?

Your shtick as a broken record on Eric Staal has reached a new, obsessive level if you seriously think that Eric has not improved as a player since the 05-06 season.
 

Finlandia WOAT

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As for Staal, he's our best player, and our team sucks. For the collective fan psyche it's much easier to think that the key to success is for Staal to simply try harder. I think he certainly can, especially on defense, but I also think that even if Staal had an excellent year offensively and defensively, we would still fall short due to other problems with out team.

So unless it's a one-for-one swap (like Staal for Spezza+), I would stay away. I think with a few more adjustments to our depth, we can compete consistently for a 3-4 spot in the Metro division.
 

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