Colby Guy
CORAL SPRINGS —The Staal family was finishing up a round of golf at the famed Pebble Beach golf club when Marc’s phone rang. The Florida Panthers were calling.
The brothers were taking advantage of a trip gifted to Jordan by his Carolina Hurricanes teammates to commemorate his 1,000th NHL game when the phone rang.
It was not for Jordan.
Marc and Eric Staal were free agents at the time and Florida general manager Bill Zito was looking to bring them both to Sunrise.
“The four brothers were all together, we just finished a round of golf and this all sort of came about,” Marc Staal said.
“Pretty cool day, pretty cool memory.”
Marc was coming off of a tenure with mixed results with the rebuilding Detroit Red Wings. He left on a high note with individual success defensively and got a quick call from Zito when free agency opened in July.
He agreed to a one-year deal with the Panthers, then handed his phone to his brother.
It had been a year since Eric played a game in the NHL at that point.
After helping the Montreal Canadiens to the 2021 Stanley Cup Final, he found himself without an offer when his short offseason gave way to training camp.
When the league-wide Covid outbreak kept NHL players from playing in the Olympics, he jumped at the opportunity to go to Beijing as the captain of Team Canada.
“It was difficult for a little bit missing out on the everyday grind and that competitive spirit inside of me,” Eric said.
”That opportunity was special for me to be able to compete for Canada and go to Beijing. It was a life experience that I will have forever.”
He scored four points (goal, three assists) in five games.
Four months after leaving Beijing without a medal, Zito presented Staal with an opportunity to get back into the NHL.
”When free agency opened and they were going to sign Marc, they asked me if i wanted to sign on a PTO,” Eric said. ”I thought it was a no-brainer.”
The last time Eric played with his brother, his Carolina Hurricanes were a seller at the 2016 trade deadline with his contract due to expire.
At the time he was traded, he had the most goals (322), assists (453) and points (775) in Carolina history. Only Ron Francis bested him in franchise history when accounting his Hartford Whalers days.
Eric, 31 at the time, was given the right to choose where he wanted to go. And for him, it was either staying in Carolina or going to the New York Rangers to play with his brother.
”It was fun for me to be able to cross that off with playing with Marc,” he said.
His tenure alongside Marc in New York was short-lived.
Eric played only 20 regular season games and five playoff games as a Ranger before being sent home by the eventual-champion Pittsburgh Penguins.
He signed with the Minnesota Wild the following offseason.
”It was special to compete daily (alongside Marc),” Eric said.
”It feels like a blink of an eye because it was so quick with the deadline and the playoffs but it was still special.”
Six years after competing for a Stanley Cup with Marc, Eric finds himself bunking up at his new house in South Florida while looking to keep his NHL career alive.
“I love competing with anybody, but when it’s your own brother and you grow up doing that your whole life, it’s special,” Eric said.
”When it’s an environment like this where it’s competitive and fun, you have to have that energy, that excitement, that passion burning. We both still have that, that’s a good thing.”
The unique opportunity the Panthers gave him not only presented an opportunity to play with his brother, but also spend time with his nieces and nephew.
While competing for a roster spot is a grueling endeavor, Uncle Eric has another one waiting at home.
”He has three kids, so it’s a little more taxing when you are tired,” he said.
”You just want to chill and the kids are excited to play, but it’s also great. It’s a lot of fun to enjoy that with them and be there. I haven’t seen them a ton over the years, you see them a little bit more in the summer but now to see them in their element, going to school and doing all that, it’s been fun to spend some time together.”
Eric and Marc were not the only members of the Staal family to join the Panthers organization.
Jared Staal joined the team’s AHL affiliate in Charlotte as an assistant coach, leaving Jordan as the only brother in a different organization.
”We try to ignore him,” Marc joked.
While Marc has a contract and will be on the Panthers this season, Eric’s position is a little more tenuous.
Although it assumed he is going to be on the team, he will have to earn a roster spot on a cap-strapped team.
Through the first three days of training camp, Eric Staal certainly looks like a regular.
For a likely Hall of Famer — he has played 1,293 games, scoring 1,034 points and won the Stanley Cup with Carolina — Eric Staal could have eased his way into the rigors of training camp.
Yet he looks like a player taking nothing for granted.
“He’s got a legitimate chance and it has nothing to do with our history,” said Maurice, who has had Eric Staal centering what looks like a potential fourth line with Patric Hornqvist and Ryan Lomberg.
“I told him I would be honest with him in where he is at. Through three days, that has been a fearsome line out there. They are on the puck heavy. He is in good shape, pushed himself this summer for this chance. He’s a legitimate contender.
“When you’re talking about a man like that, in the ‘Triple Gold Club’ who has been a champion everywhere he has been, he had that mindset long before he signed the PTO. If he’s going to make the commitment, he’s coming to make the team. He wasn’t coming here to see how it went. He is in on the drills and is another example of a veteran guy who isn’t big-leaguing it in training camp.”
And Eric Staal is certainly familiar with the Florida Panthers organization.
In 2003, the Panthers held the first overall pick in the draft and could have selected him but instead then-GM Rick Dudley (who has been at camp every day as a member of the team’s front office) traded the pick to Pittsburgh and moved to the No. 3 spot.
The Penguins took goalie Marc-Andre Fleury allowing Carolina to take Staal.
Florida preferred Nathan Horton and took him third.
Eric Staal tormented the Panthers moving forward. In 74 games against Florida, he not only has 23 goals and 54 points but helped the Hurricanes dominate the old Southeast Division and beat the Panthers time and again.
Horton, meanwhile, ended up being traded to Boston in 2010 by Dale Tallon after reportedly asking out of Florida.
If longtime Panthers’ fans still hold a grudge toward Staal, he says he understands.
”Rightfully so, that’s fine,” Staal said. “If I get the opportunity to play for them, I will do my best to make the other fans hate me as much as they did back then with Florida and Carolina.
“But we had some rivalries back then with (Roberto Luongo) and Eddie the Eagle for a while. There were some good games. It’s fun to be on this side with them and to be in this camp is special.”
Staal is the one who brought up Ed Belfour although he was only with the Panthers one season — and ended up losing all four of his meetings to the Hurricanes during the 2006-07 season.
On April 1, 2007, Belfour famously went off after Bryan Allen was called for hooking Staal in overtime, vigorously implying Staal embellished to draw another penalty.
Ray Whitney won the game with a goal 24 seconds later.
Belfour played one more game with the Panthers a few days later in what ended up being his NHL finale.
“For the record,” Staal said as he was walking out of the locker room, “I didn’t dive.”
Well, judge for yourself.