What We Learned: What should Carolina Hurricanes do with Eric Staal?

(Hello, this is a feature that aims to recap the weekend’s events and boils those events down to one admittedly superficial fact or stupid opinion about each team. Feel free to complain about it.)

It's no secret at this point that arguably the two most important players in recent memory for the Carolina Hurricanes are now major points of concern.

Eric Staal and Cam Ward have long been talked about in trade rumors, largely because they are in their declining years on a rebuilding and improving team, are both UFAs at the end of next season, and cost a combined $14.55 million against the cap for a budget team that never actually comes all that close to the ceiling.

A lot of this, too, has to do with the fact that Staal has slowed down in his production somewhat over the last two seasons (about 0.73 points per game as opposed to the 0.85-plus he put up every season since the 2004-05 lockout), and he's coming in at one of the highest cap hits in the league for any player, at $8.25 million. Staal will be 31 at the end of October and he's certainly not worth that much, and for a team that looks to be moving toward a future without Staal as its clear best player, the prospect of trading him while he's still carrying value in the marketplace is tantalizing.

The problem with any looming Staal rumors, though, is that cap hit. Because no one has $8.5 million in space lying around. Hell, even if Carolina were to retain as much as 50 percent of his salary and cap hit, many teams would still be in tough to make $4.125 million work unless the Hurricanes took bad money back as well. And would they, given their own budgetary constraints that have little to do with the cap itself? Someone would have to make it very much worth their while.

And Staal still provides significant value for the club, too. As Travis Yost recently noted, the Hurricanes were a pretty decent team in the second half of the season; better than most teams in their division by a pretty wide margin after shuffling along at roughly 50 percent possession for most of the first half. Staal was a big driver there, too: his relative possession numbers came in at plus-2.2 or so for the first half, and then a whopper plus-10.9 in the second half. That's as the entire team improved, which tells you a lot about how good he was.

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However, we cannot discount how much of that had to do with Jordan Staal's return to full health. He played just five games in the first 41 for Carolina, having been out of the lineup entirely until Dec. 29. If you break it down by that date and not the first 41, Eric Staal goes from 53.1 percent possession to a stunning 59.9 percent.

Likewise, Eric Staal's scoring numbers took off when his little brother returned to the lineup; he had 20 in 31 games (0.65 per) to start the season, and then finished with 34 in 46 in the back half (.74). Jordan Staal has long proven useful on just about any team — think how much the Penguins miss him even now — and Carolina is no different. The question, on some level, is how much of the production jump is driven by Jordan, and how much of it is Eric still being a pretty damn good player. I mean, even if you accept that they're playing together for most of the year given how immovable the contract is, this is a pretty good list of comparables across 12 different statistics for players who were of roughly the same age (via Emmanuel Perry's Similarity Scores tool):

So what Ron Francis has to consider here is whether Eric Staal is just another person you can swap out and still get a decently high level of production from a guy who might be lower on the depth chart. Jordan is actually the center on that line (he took 785 draws in 46 games, to Eric's 669 in 77), which is informative as to which one is more important to the overall team picture. High-level wings are good to have, obviously, but Jordan Staal seems like an elite possession-driving center who makes the players around him better. We have little evidence that this is the case for Eric at his age.

Again, Eric Staal isn't or even slightly subaverage at this point, but his value is never going to be greater than it is right now, and at the very least he should be sold at the deadline instead of extended. It would be surprising to see him go before then, but if a full season of a trade to a team with cap space gets a better haul, then it's a deal Francis ought to jump on.

And as for Ward, well, if you can find someone to take that contract, even if it's for a low-round pick or a D-plus prospect, you have to do it at this point. Retain as much salary as you can, etc. Get him off the roster by hook or by crook, but a 31-year-old goalie who hasn't been north of .910 in the last three seasons, and has only played 98 games in that time, is a major worry. And even if he somehow ends up being good again (and make no mistake, he was a .918 goalie over four seasons from 2008-12, but he's not so coincidentally now at .910 for his career), that's a big contract to begin with and you're better off without it.

That's especially true because Francis went out and robbed Vancouver blind for Eddie Lack (.915 in 86 regular- and postseason games), getting him for just a third- and seventh-round pick. The idea that Lack would have to split time with Ward is at this point unconscionable, and in fact even if Francis can't find a trading partner for the former Conn Smythe winner, he probably benefits the team more as the league's most expensive backup than in a 1a/1b scenario.

Mathematically, Ward cost the Hurricanes about 5.70 goals over a league-average netminder last season, which is about the equivalent of two points in the standings, give or take. Now obviously Carolina would have still finished near the bottom of the league last season even with those two points (they were six back of 24th-place Philadelphia) but the fact is that if you're not at least breaking even in terms of goals contributed to the cause, that's a player who shouldn't be getting 51, 41 or even 31 games.

But again, no one has the kind of space required to take on a contract like that, and the idea of retaining so much salary would likely be troublesome for a team like Carolina — indeed, they're already retaining money on Jay Harrison and Tuomo Ruutu's deals for this coming season, and paying Alex Semin his buyout money for a while to come — so at some point you just can't expect them to be able to keep making those deals. In fact, the CBA only allows teams to retain three salaries at a time.

So Francis has to choose his moves with these players carefully. Maybe he has interest in bringing the older Staal back, and would therefore prefer to retain him rather than get assets for him. He's almost certainly going to let Ward walk this summer. But in any event, you have to wonder just how all the puzzle pieces fit together as the team continues to stock up on and develop young talent.

What We Learned

Anaheim Ducks: If your opinion is that your team needs to have a goalie rotation, that doesn't speak very well for that team's goalies. The old saying goes, “If you have two goalies, you don't have any,” for a reason.

Arizona Coyotes: Arizona signed a kid who was going to play college hockey next season before he even arrived on campus at Notre Dame. He's already 6-foot-2 and 212 pounds as an 18-year-old, so that makes sense.

Boston Bruins: Not content with doing it to just NHL players and fans, Jeremy Jacobs is now also nickel-and-diming the IRS. (He actually has a pretty good case.)

Buffalo Sabres: Nice little look Dan Bylsma's upbringing here.

Calgary Flames: Don't build rinks for billionaires.

Carolina Hurricanes: The Hurricanes have a lot of defensive prospects coming down the pike (potentially as a reaction to the years in which their blue line was horrendous), but none are better than Noah Hanifin.

Chicago: You're probably not going to hear a lot about Patrick Kane's case any time soon.

Colorado Avalanche: The answer to this question would appear to be no. Carl Soderberg is no Ryan O'Reilly.

Columbus Blue Jackets: Ryan Johansen will throw out the first pitch at the Reds game in Cincinnati tonight. He will also take batting practice, but he probably won't go yard like Sidney Crosby did in Pittsburgh that one time.

Dallas Stars: How many point-a-game seasons will dude have to record before Boston media stops writing this garbage?

Detroit Red Wings: If he needs his TOI dialed back, maybe Niklas Kronwall..... shouldn't lead the defense?

Edmonton Oilers: This coming season is the final one at Rexall Place. Expect a lot of “I promised Mess I wouldn't do this” moments.

Florida Panthers: Seems as though the Panthers could be losing 33-year-old Tomas Kopecky to Chicago. Not that they really wanted him back or anything.

Los Angeles Kings: Just $1.5 million for Christian Ehrhoff on Aug. 23? Why would sign anyone on July 1? (Reminder: Deryk Engelland makes $2.95 million.)

Minnesota Wild: One wonders just what a full season of Devan Dubnyk looks like, but don't get your hopes up based on last season.

Montreal Canadiens: Turns out Carey Price would like to win a Stanley Cup. With that team?

Nashville Predators: This is true of literally any city with a winning team in any sport.

New Jersey Devils: Expansion is coming, and could impact the Devils among many other teams through realignment.

New York Islanders: The move to a smaller building and all that winning seems to have resulted in a nearly 46 percent increase in their average ticket price. Good lord.

New York Rangers: Great news that Mats Zuccarello has been cleared for contact.

Ottawa Senators: Chris Neil says he cut some weight. Seven pounds, to be exact. I don't know how this helps him, but okay fine.

Philadelphia Flyers: Free snacks when the pope comes to town!

Pittsburgh Penguins: The Penguins have so many center options that someone has to play the wing.

San Jose Sharks: The Sharks are changing their goal song. Get your jokes in while you can.

St. Louis Blues: Why on earth do people think the Blues are a Stanley Cup contender? “They're from St. Louis” seems like the only reasonable answer.

Tampa Bay Lightning: Turns out Anton Stralman is good.

Toronto Maple Leafs: Now poor Phil Kessel has even longer to walk for that daily hot dog.

Vancouver Canucks: And these are gigantic questions, to boot.

Washington Capitals: This really does feel like a Caps team that can at least make the Eastern Conference Final for once.

Winnipeg Jets: Well, you're gonna have to be. Look at your division for more information.

Gold Star Award

Shout out to Tyler Seguin for his perfectly reasonable take on jersey ads.

Minus of the Weekend

These expansion phases sure are fun.

Perfect HFBoards Trade Proposal of the Week

User “HelleCopter” is (presumably) at it again.

Dallas:
Burrows
Edler

Vancouver:
1st 2016
Oleksiak
Honka
Faksa

Signoff
Trees look weird if you squint at 'em.

Ryan Lambert is a Puck Daddy columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.

(All stats via War On Ice unless otherwise noted.)