Colby Guy
After going without a point in his first two months with the Florida Panthers, Eric Staal has caught fire.
It took a while for Staal to get going after making his Panthers debut on Oct. 27 — especially after being away from the grind of an NHL season for an entire season.
But he put in the work and it culminated in a run of 13 points in 17 games since he picked up his first point of the year back on Dec. 1.
“I knew that it all wasn’t going to come back right away,” Staal said.
But it is now. And the Panthers have needed it.
”It was going to take a little time and it took work and consistent effort to improve my game whether it was going on early or staying on extra after practice,’’ Staal continued.
“It took a little bit of time, probably a bit longer than I would have liked personally, but it’s a tough league for a reason and there’s a lot of great players and I’ve been it a long time and I don’t take it for granted.
”I worked out and made sure i was continuing to improve daily.”
Staal initially clung to a fourth-line, penalty-killing role and the same hockey IQ that helped him register over 1,000 career points made it a seamless transition into the role.
The likely Hall-of-Famer did not care about how small the role was, he did what he could to contribute to the team.
“What is really incredible about this guy is that he has been like a chameleon, over the course of his career,” said Paul Maurice, Staal’s first coach with the Carolina Hurricanes back in 2003.
”He doesn’t play hockey last year, doesn’t start the year with us and goes 16 games without scoring a point. Now, since Dec. 1st, he is our second leading scorer. And that is on the fourth line. He is so competitive that he has figured out a way to get better regardless of the adversity or the circumstances.”
That kind of role was not something foreign to Staal.
The last time Staal was playing in the NHL before his one-year break, he was playing alongside Joel Armia and Corey Perry on the Montreal Canadiens’ fourth line during their 2021 Stanley Cup Final run.
Maurice got to watch firsthand as Staal and his linemates helped that line grind away a series win against his Winnipeg Jets in the semifinal.
”We didn’t have an answer to his line,” Maurice said. ”They were big, heavy guys who hung onto the puck.”
It was not easy for Staal to channel that side of his game after a year off — especially at 38 years old — but he improved in different areas of the game little by little.
The confidence started to build for Staal in November when Maurice entrusted him with a spot on Florida’s top penalty kill unit and he has not looked back since.
“I think my game was trending in the right direction,” Staal said.
“As an offensive guy my whole career, when you get on the board and feel good, it helps your game in other areas as well and I’ve ben able to continue to gain confidence.”
The opportunities for Staal to create offense were pretty limited early on, with no minutes on the power play available and his line playing out of the four-hole most of the time, but he took what he got.
When injuries and illnesses started to pile up in December, his line with Ryan Lomberg and Nick Cousins became one of the team’s most consistent at the time.
“You take a year off and it’s going to take a while but he just keeps kind of building and getting stronger without opportunity for offense,” Maurice said.
“The guys he is playing with aren’t shooters, so he has earned all of those goals. When it comes off of his stick, they are his.”
Cousins has since moved up to the third line and has been replaced by Givani Smith on the fourth line, but it’s M.O. has not changed.
All three of those guys are going to forecheck hard and Staal has been able to use that to create offense.
“It’s definitely something we are striving for every game,” Lomberg said.
”We want to be consistent. We want to be able to have a positive impact on every game and it’s easy to be consistent with a guy like that. He controls the play, he talks more than anybody, so it makes it easy.”
He has been able to adapt and become the focal point of that line and make plays any way he can.
“I pride myself over my whole career in being able to play with different types of players,” Staal said.
“With those guys, we were playing a pretty direct game on the forecheck trying to spend as much time in the offensive zone as we could. Both of those guys can make some plays and when you do that consistently, you’re going to create chances.”
And the mojo he has gained over the past month has made it even easier on his linemates.
“He knows that he is capable of scoring and now that they are starting to fall, he is really starting to look for it more,” Lomberg said.
”He is a dangerous player now with all of that confidence, so we’re going to try getting the puck as much as we can.”