So with the rest of the draft weekend going down pretty quietly and Roberto Luongo and Rick Nash staying put (for now), the Canes aggressive move to land Jordan Staal clearly goes down as the blockbuster of the draft.

I am on record from shortly after the trade as generally liking the deal. You can check out the details if you wish.

So after a couple days of let it sink it, where do I sit now? Pretty much the same place.

Canes GM Jim Rutherford's ability to patchwork a bunch of puzzle pieces together to create a coherent and darn good hockey team is legend-worthy. In 2002, he built a defense from spare parts (Aaron Ward added for a pick, Sean Hill similarly for about nothing, and Bret Hedican in a salary/oops dump of Sandis Ozolinsh). He built a solid 3rd line from 2 Czech kids (Josef Vasicek and Jaroslav Svoboda) and an energy and grit role player (Martin Gelinas) who were young and not even highly touted draft pick. And minus much of a star factor and plus a little luck, the Canes had a Stanley Cup finalist that was only a late Brett Hull deflection away from going deep and possibly stealing a Stanley Cup.

Then in 2006, he capitalized on the disarray of the lockout, the salary cap and the year off to buy possibly the greatest collection of cast-offs and bargain bin signings ever assembled. The list of key Stanley Cup contributors who were signed for less than $2M each included Ray Whitney (bought out by Detroit and signed by the Canes for $1.5M), Cory Stillman (despite winning Cup Tampa could not afford him so the Canes got him for $1.75M), Martin Gerber ($1.2M starter), Frantisek Kaberle, Matt Cullen and Mike Commodore. Not one of those guys was highly sought after or bid on. And each and every one filled a spot in the top half of a Stanley Cup-winning roster.

But the problem with the puzzle piece approach partly a necessity of the Canes $10M under salary cap budget is that it has a ton of moving parts and is about impossible to do consistently. Reference 2011-12 (and a bunch of other years too) with the kids (Dalpe, Bowman, Boychuk, etc.) not stepping into big enough roles and the signings not working out so well either (Tomas Kaberle, Anthony Stewart, Alexei Ponikarovsky, etc.). And you get a team that just is minus on pure top-end hockey talent relative to its opponents. In hockey, cohesion and chemistry can and do make the whole greater than the sum of the parts (reference the good playoff runs in 2002, 2006 and 2009), but it also results in down years.

So soon after the end of disappointing 2011-12 season, the Canes (namely Jim Rutherford) were surprisingly vocal about budget and desire to add a top-end forward. Names like Zach Parise and Rick Nash were being bandie about in Raleigh of all places. And the talk became reality on June 23, when the Canes pulled off a big trade to acquire Jordan Staal and add a true top-end forward to the mix.

Per my original post, I like the deal.

While the Canes will never spend to the salary cap, I think they needed to do something to boost the core of its top end. And I think Jordan Staal is the right guy for a few reasons.

1) Get something done. The pool of high-end free agent forwards is light this summer. Even if the Canes are willing to put up top dollar for Zach Parise, that doesn't mean they get him. There will be multiple suitors in a similar (high) price range which means he gets to pick where he wants to play. So if someone else outbids for Nash and Parise accepts someone else's mega offer, the Canes are suddenly back to the old plan or a very desperate meaures to pry someone else loose. Neither of those is where they want to be come August.

2) The right kind of player. Jordan Staal is the right kind of player. For all of the skill Rick Nash has and all of the goal totals, I view him as a breakeven guy at even strength. His line has historically given up as much as the boatloads they have scored. I don't want to reopen the whole "Is +/- a useful stat" debate, but I think it is telling for Jordan Staal. He generally lines up against the other team's best scoring line much of the night. (=>They tend to score a lot) And he has generally played with defense-oriented forwards minus a bunch of scoring skill. (=>His line was really not built to score a ton, that isn't their job) But yet he has been a plus player the past 4 years (basically since he turned 20 and got a couple years deep in this role). His game is different in many ways, but his results very much remind me of Rod Brind'Amour. Via a mixed, non-stat-sheet-heavy approach, his line is just better than whoever they play against every night despite the fact that they are playing against the other team's best most nights.

So put more succinctly:

1) The Canes desperately need more top-end talent. I applaud them for aggressively working to get it even if the price is high and the risk is there.

2) There are not a ton of options to do this this summer, and the team has minimal control of if one of the other options would pan out even if they took the necessary steps.

3) I think Jordan Staal is the right kind of "winning for 20 minutes 5-on-5 against the other team's best" type of player that wins hockey games even if not filling up the score sheet.

I will try to post part 2 tomorrow which is more specific to Jordan Staal, where he fits and what I hope/expect for him.

For a quick heads up when I post a Canes blog, follow me on Twitter at CarolinaMatt63.

Go Canes!

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