After nearly 2 days of waiting since Jordan Staal's injury in Buffalo on Tuesday night, the team finally put a timetable to it saying that Jordan Staal was expected to miss 3-4 months. You can read the team's announcement HERE. So rough math says best case of 3 months is late December and 4 months would be late January. Just UGGHH!
It will be interesting to see what the team does on 2 levels. GM Ron Francis was real quiet this summer not having much, if anything, for budget to add new players. There is no direct replacement for Jordan Staal, but might he make a move to add another veteran forward of some variety to help fill out the lineup? Or will he ride the young guns and hope for the best? Victor Rask has been the talk of camp so far. I think part of it is the team marketing to promote September optimism in a preseason following a playoff miss and minus top half of the roster free agent additions. But there is an element of legitimacy to it based on Rask's early play.
Past Ron Francis, it will also be interesting to see what Coach Bill Peters does. I wrote it up in more detail in my game recap last night that you can find HERE.
The short version is threefold:
1) Elias Lindholm. He moved from RW to C for the 1st time this fall. He was not horrible, but he did not really do anything to stand out and also struggled at 19% in the faceoff circle.
2) Victor Rask. He centered a line (as he probably would have even before JStaal's injury) and looked pretty good. He looked capable (not spectacular but capable) and was a strong 73% in the faceoff circle.
3) Jay McClement. He played a whopping 21 minutes in the win. Per my comments 2 days ago, my best bet is that Peters will build a strong defensive line around McClement (Gerbe and Dwyer?) and give them many of the hard minutes that previously went to JStaal's line. This would free up a 4th (or call it 3B) line that is lighter on experience but heavier on offensive upside to cherry pick matchups and minutes hoping to generate offense without too many growing pains defensively.
It is going to be a huge challenge for the Canes to overcome the absence of Jordan Staal, but I guess there are 2 silver linings. First, the setback came with 2 weeks to adjust and have practice time and games that do not count to sort it out. If the team can figure it out and at least tread water in the 1st half of the season, they have a very good addition already scheduled to join the team right when the dog days of the long NHL season arrive.
I could easily make 5-6 line combinations depending on what happens with Lindholm and Rask, but for fun I will take my shot at arm chair coach saying it works out like this at least to start the season:
Skinner/EStaal/Lindholm Tlusty/Nash/Semin Gerbe/McClement/Dwyer Malone/Rask/Boychuk
What say you Canes fans? Will Francis make a move? Can this team adjust and fill the hole left by Jordan Staal's injury? Is anyone else already sick of reading Hurricanes and Eichel in the same sentence?
Twitter=@CarolinaMatt63
Go Canes!