The Two-Line Pass

The Lead

Anyone that reads this blog or my column on Puck Daddy or my posts on message boards or my status updates on Facebook or my tweets on Twitter or my scrawlings on public restroom walls or have even been standing within 10 feet of me at a bar while a Hurricanes game was on knows my stance on Eric Staal: I am not enamored of him.

And so imagine my joy when, even though he brought his A game in the first couple minutes and got the Hurricanes on the board and generally appeared determined to have a positive impact on the game for the first time since the middle of the Eastern Conference semifinals against Boston, he still finished a minus-1 and his Hurricanes slouched out of the playoffs.

Now, I promised myself I wouldn’t make a Staal vs. Staal comparison at any point in any of my work on any site, but here’s the thing: I was looking at the stats for the whole series and the player to whom Eric’s four-game stretch was most comparable, at least on the surface, was Jordan’s rather than, obviously, Sid Crosby or Evgeni Malkin’s. So Eric is played up as THE SUPERSTAR on Carolina and, for better or worse, rightly so. So what’s it tell you when your superstar, who you will make the fourth-highest-paid player in the league next year (that is, before someone backs the dump trucks full of money up to the houses of Mssrs. Bouwmeester, Hossa and Gaborik), is played pretty much neck-and-neck with a third-line center who, and I swear to this is happenstance, you just so happens to be his brother?

As a means of answering, I’ll just say it sure is nice to be proven right time and again. And really, it’s nice to see him get completely dominated by his checking line-quality little brother, who, despite garnering roughly one-sixth the salary for about the same disparity in game-changing talent (supposing for a moment that Eric kicked his dreadful habit of approaching most games with frightening casuality), dramatically outplayed his eldest brother for pretty much all of the four-game series.

In Game 1, neither Staal registered a point and while Eric had a 3-0 edge in shots, he also took a penalty and was a minus-1 to his brother’s even night. Other than that, they had a similar night in terms of things like hits and blocked shots (two and one each, respectively), and Eric had a takeaway while Jordan had a giveaway. And Eric dominated at the dot (14-8) and Jordan was, well, not so dominant (6-8). You know how that goes. They also went head-to-head on draws 12 times and both won six.

In Game 2, both Staals had assists. Wow! Eric led in shots 3-2, but was a minus-2 compared to Jordan’s plus-1. Jordan had one hit to Eric’s none, both blocked a shot and both had a takeaway (Jordan also had a giveaway), but it was the junior Staal that owned the faceoff circle: 9-6 to Eric’s terrible 8-15. Jordan led head-to-head draws 9-5.

For Game 3, you’ll be shocked to find, it was more of the same: both Staals played a similar game except Eric had six shots to Jordan’s three. Neither registered a point, and while Jordan was a minus-2 (that’s bad!), Eric was a minus-3 (that’s worse!). Both had two hits but Eric also had a takeaway (to go with a giveaway) and blocked a shot. Jordan went 6-7 on the draw and Eric was 5-13. They only took three draws against eachother but, whaddayaknow, Jordan won 2-1.

In Game 4, Eric had the goal, alright. He also a 5-2 advantage in shots on goal. But then they part ways, because Jordan was a force, doling out five hits, several of them bone-jarring, as well as blocking a shot and a takeaway, and finished the night even. Eric, meanwhile, had two hits, a giveaway and a takeaway, and also blocked one shot. And then there’s the faceoffs: Jordan went 6-6, Eric went 7-13. Head-to-head, Eric finally got the big W he was looking for, going 3-2.

So let’s tally it all up then:

Eric went 1-1-2 on 17 shots, and minus-7 with six hits, four takeaways, two giveaways and four blocked shots. He went 35-52 on faceoffs and 14-20 against his li’l brudder.

Jordan went 0-1-1 on seven shots, and minus-1 with 10 hits, two takeaways, two giveaways and four blocked shots. He went 27-27 on faceoffs and 20-14 against Eric.

Guess which one’s signed up for a cap hit of more than $8 million next year…. Haha, yeah, it’s the guy that captained his team to a four-game exit.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 at 1:16 am and is filed under Good night. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.