The defending Stanley Cup champions have lost their captain for one to two months, and he got hurt before a game started.
Rod Brind’Amour said Tuesday that Jordan Staal tore his calf during warmups ahead of Carolina’s 4-1 win at Philadelphia on Sunday. Staal is the reigning Conn Smythe Trophy winner as playoff MVP of the Hurricanes’ championship run.
“A freak thing but it is what it is,” Brind’Amour said. “It was just something he did in warmups.”
And then the part that matters: “It’s going to be a long-term injury, really.”
What Carolina Is Losing
Staal had no points in six games this season, which undersells him badly. Last season he put up 36 points on 20 goals and 16 assists in 75 regular season games, then 12 points on eight goals and four assists in 19 playoff games, including six goals in the Cup Final alone.
Across 15 seasons in Carolina he has 499 points on 198 goals and 301 assists in 978 regular season games. That is second in franchise games played, counting the Hartford Whalers era, and fifth in franchise points. His 108 playoff games are tied with Sebastian Aho for the most in team history.
A warmup calf tear is taking out the most decorated player in the building.
And Then Taylor Hall
Two days later, Hall left Tuesday’s 4-1 win over Philadelphia in the second period after just 4:17 of ice time with an upper-body injury.
Brind’Amour’s assessment was four words: the injury “doesn’t look good.”
Hall has five points on three goals and two assists in eight games. Losing him on top of Staal takes two forwards out of the top nine inside 72 hours.
Brind’Amour Is Not Pretending Otherwise
“But there’s no hiding that now, so we’re all going to have to step up a little more,” he said.
That is the honest version, and it is better than the alternative. Carolina has won both games since Staal went down, which creates exactly the kind of false comfort that gets a team through October and nowhere in April.
Mark Jankowski Is the Early Answer
Jankowski moved up from the fourth line into Staal’s third-line spot between Nikolaj Ehlers and Jordan Martinook. He scored in 15:48 of ice time and now has goals in four straight games.
That is a genuine hot streak and it is not a replacement for a Conn Smythe winner. Bradly Nadeau was recalled from AHL Chicago on Wednesday to add a body.
Carolina visits Winnipeg on Saturday.
The Real Risk Is the Calendar
One to two months in mid-October means Staal returns somewhere between late November and mid-December. For a 15-year veteran coming off a 19-game playoff run and a soft-tissue tear, the back end of that range is the safer bet, and the re-injury risk on a calf does not disappear when he gets cleared.
Carolina can absorb two months. What it cannot absorb is a captain who comes back at 80 percent and spends the spring managing it, which is how defending champions lose in the second round.
Brind’Amour knows this better than anyone. He played 1,484 games. The “freak thing” line was not a shrug. It was a coach declining to explain how a championship season gets derailed by a stretching routine.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.