Following on my game blog from last night, I think it would be interesting to move Eric Staal to wing, not necessarily permanently but to see if it can jumpstart things a bit.

Here are the facts:
1) He is struggling mightily so far this season. He does have 3 goals and an assist in 9 games. But when you dig through the numbers, he has been a power play specialist better off the ice than on 5-on-5. All 3 goals are power play markers leaving him with a lone assist in 9 games at even strength.

And in addition to not scoring at even strength, his line has struggled keeping the puck out of their own net. He was plus 1 last night which marks the 1st time this season that the Canes scored more at even strength with him on the ice than off. He does have 1 other even game, but has been minus in the other 7 games to the tune of a league-worst minus 9 on the 2010-11 campaign.

2) Coach Paul Maurice has tried about everything in terms of linemates to get things moving. He has seen combinations of Skinner, Ponikarovsky, Jokinen, Ruutu, Larose and even a couple trainers on his wings with largely the same results. There really isn't a lot else to try in terms of combinations, so we are down to patience and hope.

3) He continues to struggle in the faceoff circle. When I last checked he was 3rd from the bottom at about 43% amongst players that had taken a starting center volume of draws.

I realize that Staal has been a center from day 1 in Raleigh. I also realize that there will be a few who call this crazy blasphemy. But 2 points on that:

1) When building a real good hockey team (Team Canada for the last Olympics), Staal quickly jumped to wing next to Sidney Crosby and played well in that role. I realize that the talent pool for that team was wildly different, but still.

2) If you think about it, his game really is more that of a scoring power forward type of wing anyway even when he is playing well.

--From day 1, he has leaned 80/20 shoot versus pass (if not more) and is clearly more goal scorer (think Rick Nash) than playmaker (a la Marc Savard). People get fixated on the Erik Cole thing. While I do agree that there was always a chemistry there that helped both players, I think people often overlook the fact that Staal's best stretches of hockey as a Cane also came with a playmaking pass-first wing to feed him scoring chances. First it was Cory Stillman and then later Ray Whitney.

--His faceoff acumen just still is not there which is a recipe for playing more defense than offense when on the ice. Put a better faceoff person next to him and you automatically play more in the offensive zone where goals happen than he is now.

--Where does the bulk of his best scoring chances come from? I would argue that Staal is most dangerous using his size and speed roaring down a wing off the rush and beating the goalie. When I think of Staal scoring a goal, I think of him being fed a pass from center ice pushing down the off wing on the right side to back up the defender and then blasting a shot past the goalie. Over the years, Staal has improved as a 2-way center. Might this be a little bit at the expense of being able to blow the zone a little earlier and get more of those rushes right at the same time that the playmaking wings who fed some of those passes disappeared.

Finally, I make the "it can't hurt" argument. As I said above, Maurice has about exhausted the possible line combinations with different wings no results. The faceoff thing does not appear to be improving. What can it hurt at this point?

I say you put Jokinen or Ruutu at center and let Staal have at wing for a game or 2. My slight preference would be Jokinen because he seems best in the faceoff circle and is more of the playmaking type that Staal seems to thrive with.

What say you Canes fans? Am I completely off my rocker? Does it just take patience at this time? Or just might it be worth a try for a couple games?

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Go Canes!

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