{"id":268262,"date":"2025-11-07T07:02:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T07:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/268262\/"},"modified":"2025-11-07T07:02:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T07:02:09","slug":"hurricanes-staal-marks-milestone-game-with-1st-fight-since-17","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/268262\/","title":{"rendered":"Hurricanes&#8217; Staal marks milestone game with 1st fight since &#8217;17"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>RALEIGH, N.C. &#8212; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nhl\/player\/_\/id\/3541\/jordan-staal\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jordan Staal<\/a> broke the record for games played as a Carolina Hurricane and then missed a long stretch of Thursday night&#8217;s game after a rare fight.<\/p>\n<p>It turned out to be a rewarding evening as the Hurricanes beat the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nhl\/team\/_\/name\/min\/minnesota-wild\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Minnesota Wild<\/a> 4-3.<\/p>\n<p>The Carolina captain played in his 910th game in a Hurricanes jersey, pulling ahead of brother Eric Staal.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I appreciate the boys battling it out for me there,&#8221; Staal said. &#8220;Getting a good memory out of milestone game and getting the two points. It has been a fun ride. It has been a lot of fun with these guys here and all the other teammates I&#8217;ve played with it has been just a joy and blessing and I&#8217;m just happy to keep going.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Jordan Staal, 37, is third in franchise history in games played when the team&#8217;s time as the Hartford Whalers is included behind Ron Francis (1,186) and Glen Wesley (913).<\/p>\n<p>Staal played his first six NHL seasons with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nhl\/team\/_\/name\/pit\/pittsburgh-penguins\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pittsburgh Penguins<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img class=\" lazyload lazyload\" data-image-container=\".inline-photo\" height=\"320\" width=\"570\"\/>Jordan Staal rushed Minnesota&#8217;s Tyler Pitlick in the first period after Pitlick&#8217;s blow to the head of Hurricanes defenseman Jalen Chatfield, his first fight since February 2017.\u00a0Photo by Josh Lavallee\/NHLI via Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He comes to the rink every day and puts the team first,&#8221; Carolina coach Rod Brind&#8217;Amour said. &#8220;In today&#8217;s day and age, it&#8217;s not unique, but it&#8217;s getting harder and harder to find.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Staal was involved in his first fight since February 2017, when he rushed Minnesota&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nhl\/player\/_\/id\/5526\/tyler-pitlick\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tyler Pitlick<\/a> in the first period after Pitlick&#8217;s blow to the head of Hurricanes defenseman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nhl\/player\/_\/id\/4063449\/jalen-chatfield\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jalen Chatfield<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s our leader,&#8221; Brind&#8217;Amour said. &#8220;We talk a lot about him and we can&#8217;t say enough great things. That&#8217;s just another one of those things he does for our group and is willing to do.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>That scuffle drew Staal a five-minute fighting major and a 10-minute instigator penalty, even though Pitlick was done for the night with a match penalty.<\/p>\n<p>After returning to the ice, Staal&#8217;s influence remained high. He won his final 10 faceoffs.<\/p>\n<p>Chatfield&#8217;s injury marked another blow to the Hurricanes&#8217; defensive corps.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s just the way this year has gone,&#8221; Brind&#8217;Amour said. &#8220;We can&#8217;t get healthy and keep losing key pieces, that&#8217;s rough. I don&#8217;t know how long (Chatfield) is going to be out.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Carolina has already been without <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nhl\/player\/_\/id\/3069836\/jaccob-slavin\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jaccob Slavin<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nhl\/player\/_\/id\/3025662\/shayne-gostisbehere\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Shayne Gostisbehere<\/a> because of injuries, though the Hurricanes got K&#8217;Andre Miller back Thursday after a six-game absence with a lower-body injury. Miller played more than 23 minutes.<\/p>\n<p>The Hurricanes have back-to-back games this weekend, facing Buffalo at home Saturday and visiting Toronto on Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RALEIGH, N.C. &#8212; Jordan Staal broke the record for games played as a Carolina Hurricane and then missed&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":268263,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-268262","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}