Your opinions on Eric Staal

Swervin81

Leaf fan | YYZ -> SEA
Nov 10, 2011
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Leafs fan here.

Over on our FA/trade thread, several fellow fans seem to have high views of E. Staal, some with a borderline infatuation with him. I personally don't want him mostly due to contract and consistency issues, as well as not being the greatest leader out there. I see he is consistently a 70 pt guy and this is the first year he went through really long scoring droughts at times.

Many guys try using his year by year numbers to show that he is consistent, but I'm not sure. I also have been told conflicting stories on his work ethic and leadership and "intangibles" and while I know he is a high level C, I personally dob't think he is worth his contract.

I'm not asking you guys for asking prices, I'm just asking you guys what your opinions of E. Staal are as a player and what you guys think of him, just to clear the air.
 

Carolinas Identity*

I'm a bad troll...
Jun 18, 2011
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He gets off to notoriously slow starts, but then randomly goes into beat mode around February.

It's somewhat frustrating because he could be a 90-100 point guy with just a modicum of effort.
 

TheOllieC

cajun filet
Jul 12, 2013
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Inconsistently consistent. He put up like a decade of 70pt seasons. Probably could put up more. Whether that is attributed to the players he's had to play with through the years (or lack thereof), questionable effort at times, or something else, I don't know. 12-13 was his second best season ever. 13-14 was his worst.

The "leadership" and laziness things are vastly overblown on here though. I like Staal. Still a great player.
 

tarheelhockey

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Feb 12, 2010
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The only thing that makes me not want to trade him, is that we don't have anything close to a replacement. #1 centers are a major commodity in this league, so you kind of have to keep the ones you find.

That said: he is physically talented but rather lazy, and I don't throw that word around loosely about a pro hockey player. If he played the game as hard as even a Sundin or Getzlaf, he star would burn as bright as those guys. Effort truly seems to be the difference between Staal and a Hall of Fame talent.
 

Boom Boom Apathy

I am the Professor. Deal with it!
Sep 6, 2006
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He has his warts, like most players do. As fans of the team he plays for, we tend to point to those warts more than other teams fans would.

Notwithstanding the tough season he just had. The Good:
- He's big true #1C that typically takes on the toughest opponents (offensively)
- He's consistently put up 70-80 points per season, even when playing with poor talent.
- He rarely misses time for injury, even when playing lots of minutes.
- He can play in all situations (PK, PP, ES)
- He's good at face-offs
- He's good at a lot of things but not great at any one thing: good skater/good speed, decent shot, decent playmaker, can play defense effectively (when he wants to), good PK, good at face-offs, is strong, can play C or W, etc..

The Bad:
- He is inconsistent within a season and is prone to slumps / tough starts. Seems to be a mental thing to me (squeezing the stick too hard), but that's pure speculation.
- He's overpaid, but that's the nature of keeping stars in Carolina unfortunately.
- He doesn't consistently back-check hard
- He doesn't seem to give the same effort defensively that he does offensively.
- He appears to have lapses in his effort level throughout the season.
- For a big guy, he doesn't play the body or seem to have a mean streak in him.

What's interesting, is where he has really tailed off in the scoring department over the past few years is on the PP. Throughout his career, he's been good for 12-15 goals on the PP. The last 3 years? 7, 3 and 1!
 

VAcaniac

SHOOT THE PUCK
Feb 16, 2007
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I read this title and couldn't hold back the laughter.

Makes two of us...Where do we begin?

I really can't see him leading us anywhere. Nevermind, he definitely knows how to get to the penalty box. But who knows, these last few years have made me really cynical.

On the other hand, he would make a great Leaf! Leafs would be give him 400m over 3 seasons and he would show up every few games. Leafs Hockey, right?
 

Joe McGrath

Registered User
Oct 29, 2009
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I hope they trade him so I can watch the same people who defended Semin to the ends of the Earth turn on him once he appears to be the guy who likes he gives less of a **** than anyone else. That would be fairly amusing at least. Plus they will be in line for McDavid so that's good too.
 

Blueline Bomber

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Any player that appears to not give a **** more often than not shouldn't be anywhere near our team. Technically, they shouldn't be in the league, but if some other team wants to deal with them, that's their problem.
 

Chan790

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Jan 24, 2012
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I hope they trade him so I can watch the same people who defended Semin to the ends of the Earth turn on him once he appears to be the guy who likes he gives less of a **** than anyone else. That would be fairly amusing at least. Plus they will be in line for McDavid so that's good too.

...because moving Staal couldn't possibly be the right thing to do from the standpoint of improving the Canes? :shakehead

We're not close to competitive. We're not one piece away from being a 2014-15 and 2015-16 playoff team. It's legitimate to look at whether the best thing for the Canes 2-5 and 10 years out is moving our core veterans that will return real-value in terms of building blocks for the future.

The next two years are probably the high-water mark of this Canes group before we need to retool. Past that, Staal is facing the start of the downslope of his career. This may be the closest we get to the playoffs without making some significant moves. Nobody is exempt from discussion or consideration.
 

Vagrant

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Feb 27, 2002
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Things that I dislike about Eric Staal:

1. He makes too much money - that much is probably about as undeniable any criticism that can be leveled against him. What makes that even worse is the fact that we're not a team that will typically spend to the cap especially as it increases. For a team to be so closely tethered to the success or failure of one player is universally a bad thing. There are no one man teams in this league. It's not the NBA. Your best player only plays a third of the game in most cases.

2. Our record of futility with Eric Staal as Captain, by and large. Unfair or not, the lion's share of the success or failure of a team in big games falls to the captain. We've had some heartbreaking collapses with 12 at the helm. We've been a paper tiger for so many years that nobody takes this team seriously anymore. When your team goes from unlikely Cup winner to basement dwelling.... something has to be evaluated.

3. The visible effort level when things aren't going well for him personally. His influence on the ice comes and goes, which would be forgivable if it didn't coincide with such visible aspects of his game coming and going. It's near on impossible to say that a player "isn't trying", as any fan should well know, but what can be seen from Eric at times does appear to be a player that isn't as invested in the outcome as he is about his personal success. I think that the limited amount of team success we've had with Eric has been conditional upon his individual success coinciding with team goals. I would argue that 2008-2009 may have been Eric's best season in terms of the combination between scoring, playing strong defense, and of course where we ultimately ended up that season. That year we also went to the ECF.

4. He appears too comfortable here. It seems that Eric may have been a player who had too much success too soon without the insatiable desire to repeat perform. He could retire today and be remembered as a player who won just about everything that he could. It seems that it might be time for a mutual parting to put him into a market that would drive him a bit more. The pressure of Toronto may actually be good for his game. The collective lack of a Cup could manifest itself into some really inspired hockey from him.

With all those things being said, the list of things that I like about Eric Staal would be considerably longer.
 

bleedgreen

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It's hard to imagine us being better without him. Period. Even if we get good return we are rebuilding and doing it without a number one center.

The reasons for doing it are that we aren't winning with him (he typically has little help), he seems complacent (we gave him that contract), and this team does seem to need a fresh start or direction and it's tough to do with so much cash tied to him.

Back to the point though, it's hard to imagine us better without him.
 

rocky7

DAT 13
Feb 9, 2013
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can't get much worse..... anyway, it was Rutherford (and Karmanos I assume) that created the "Staal mess" with this hockey club. I'm not entirely sure how much blame can really be placed on Eric's shoulders alone.
 

Boom Boom Apathy

I am the Professor. Deal with it!
Sep 6, 2006
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I'd like to understand what exactly the "Staal Mess" is. As I said earlier, Eric is a guy that has his share of warts, but look at the defense and complimentary players this team has iced over the past few years. Guys like LaRose and Dwyer in the top 6 on a consistent basis. Terrible 4th lines, teams as soft as butter, etc.... But the worst is defense.

I don't care if Crosby was playing C on the team. When you ice guys like Sanguinetti, McBain, A Ward (v2), Harrison, Corvo, Carson, Alberts, Gleason, Kaberle, White, Babchuk, Joslin, Spacek, MAB, etc.....playing key roles on defense and you have no legitimate back-up goalie (until this past season), your team is going to suck.

I'm not saying Staal deserves no blame, as he certainly does, but IMO, one of Rutherford's biggest failings over the years is the inability to ice a NHL caliber defense on any sort of consistent basis.
 
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A Star is Burns

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I definitely think his warts and negatives have been way overblown the further along we get without going to the playoffs. I understand why that is though. I get frustrated with him and all players the more we lose as well. He's my favorite player, but if we decided to move along from him, I wouldn't be totally against it. I think we need change. I think we'd miss him when he was gone though. Even if we end up as a better team in the long run, it would be hard to replace the caliber of player he is unless we tanked in the meantime.
 

Joe McGrath

Registered User
Oct 29, 2009
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...because moving Staal couldn't possibly be the right thing to do from the standpoint of improving the Canes? :shakehead

We're not close to competitive. We're not one piece away from being a 2014-15 and 2015-16 playoff team. It's legitimate to look at whether the best thing for the Canes 2-5 and 10 years out is moving our core veterans that will return real-value in terms of building blocks for the future.

The next two years are probably the high-water mark of this Canes group before we need to retool. Past that, Staal is facing the start of the downslope of his career. This may be the closest we get to the playoffs without making some significant moves. Nobody is exempt from discussion or consideration.

History has shown that when players of Eric Staal's caliber get traded, the team doing the trading gets hosed value wise. (See: Thornton, Joe). Now that he has that price tag attached AND a no trade clause the value you can get out of him shrinks even further coming off the worst season of his career.

If they trade him the return they get will make them worse at hockey next season. Maybe for the long term health of the franchise it would be positive, but next year they will be unspeakably bad.
 

Identity404

I'm not superstitious, but I am a little stitious
Nov 5, 2005
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In defense of lazy captain e. staalo

I have to disagree with people who are saying that Eric doesn't care anymore and he is lazy.

The media has asked Eric many times if he is complacent here, wants to win, etc, and he always gives an earnest response (IMO). You can hear it in his voice. He wants nothing more than for this team (his team) to be in the playoffs again. It has been five years for him too, and I think that toll of playoff droughts has to be harder on a player than us fans.

I know we have all seen our fair share of play from Eric that points to him being lazy and not caring. This season was probably the worst for that in his entire career. Poor back-checking, taking bad penalties, etc. But who is to say that he plays like that because he doesn't care? For all we know it could be a result of playing injured, poor conditioning (maybe due to a off-season knee injury), or getting more ice time than he can handle (IIRC he has led the team in TOI as a forward for almost every season here). Perhaps he just expends most of his energy trying to score, because it's what his teams counts on him to do the most, and little is left for the other things, which results in the poor back-checking and bad penalties.

I don't know if his play is the result of any of the above, but none of you know if it is a result of not caring enough. It's unfair to Eric to say that he could be a HOF player and put up X points if he simply gave a modicum of effort. Maybe Eric is giving it his all and we just expect a little too much from him?
 

What the Faulk

You'll know when you go
May 30, 2005
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It's hard to imagine us being better without him. Period.

That's really all it comes down to. For better or worse, this team is married to him for the next few years. And simply letting him walk then seems a bad idea as well, but his money will have to come down. He'll be almost 33 when his deal expires. Assuming he averages 75 points over the next two years and at least one results in a playoff run, I could see something like 4 years, 30 million fitting both parties. Frontloaded from 10 to 8 to 7 to 5 or something like that.
 

tarheelhockey

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Feb 12, 2010
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The media has asked Eric many times if he is complacent here, wants to win, etc, and he always gives an earnest response (IMO). You can hear it in his voice. He wants nothing more than for this team (his team) to be in the playoffs again.

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?

I know we have all seen our fair share of play from Eric that points to him being lazy and not caring. This season was probably the worst for that in his entire career. Poor back-checking, taking bad penalties, etc. But who is to say that he plays like that because he doesn't care? For all we know it could be a result of playing injured, poor conditioning (maybe due to a off-season knee injury), or getting more ice time than he can handle (IIRC he has led the team in TOI as a forward for almost every season here). Perhaps he just expends most of his energy trying to score, because it's what his teams counts on him to do the most, and little is left for the other things, which results in the poor back-checking and bad penalties.

I am not one to pull the "lazy" card on just any player. There are a lot of guys who work their butts off but have a relaxed-looking physical posture, and get stuck with the lazy tag... Eric himself has always been one of those players, largely because of his skating style. I get that. It's the same as what Brian Burke had to say about Bobby Ryan and his sleepy skating, not being able to spell intense, etc. Joe Thornton, Phil Kessel, there are a ton of examples.

The difference with Eric Staal is that you can visibly see him disengaging with the difficult parts of the game. His knee is strong enough that he can shrug off defensemen in the offensive zone, but so weak that he has to coast in the other direction? I don't buy that, or the notion that he's using all his energy on scoring. If he truly expends so much energy scoring 70 points that he literally cannot take a stride toward his own zone, then he isn't a good enough to play an offense-only style. It's that simple. This isn't Alex Ovechkin where his scoring justifies his failure to contribute in other areas.

I want as much as anyone to believe that we can build a good team around Staal, but the onus is entirely on him at this point. He doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt after the ****-show he put on in 2014.
 

Joe McGrath

Registered User
Oct 29, 2009
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This past season he lost the benefit of the doubt as tar heel said. Now it's up to him to earn it back. That's all there is to it. You can't trade a player as expensive as he is coming off the worst season of his life. That's idiocy. That's asking to get completely bent over in a trade.
 

Anton Dubinchuk

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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?

Do you work hard at your job on a daily basis? This is a bad analogy. You could be the best damn Wendy's manager in the world, working hard every day, but until the owner decides to turn your Wendy's restaurant into an investing firm, you aren't going to make $1 million a year. Same with Eric, IMO. Yeah, he could stand to work a little harder. But this team is a Wendy's right now. This team isn't a couple of people smiling a little harder at the drive-thru customers away from making the playoffs. Until there's an actual change in the substance of this team I don't think Eric can be blamed for wanting to make the playoffs and "not doing what it takes." The amount of it that's his fault is minuscule compared to the fact that we're just not that good.

FWIW, I think if Eric ever decides to leave our pitiful Wendy's and join a decent investing group, he'll make a good bit more than $1 million.

/endevenworseanalogythantheoriginal
 

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