PITTSBURGH \u2014 If you were there, you can still hear the noise.<\/p>\n
Around 9 p.m. on June 22, 2012, commissioner Gary Bettman walked to the lectern at the NHL Draft at PPG Paints Arena, back when it was Consol Energy Center, and announced that the Pittsburgh Penguins had traded Jordan Staal.<\/p>\n
Before Bettman even announced the return from the Carolina Hurricanes \u2014 Brian Dumoulin, Brandon Sutter and the No. 8 pick in that draft, which regrettably became Derrick Pouliot \u2014 he first announced that Staal was headed to Raleigh.<\/p>\n
The reaction was unforgettable.<\/p>\n
Some Penguins fans screamed out in horror, as Staal had become one of the foundational members of the 2009 Stanley Cup champions and only played better from that point on. At only 23, he had already established himself as one of hockey\u2019s best defensive forwards while also scoring 25 goals in only 60 games during the previous season. He wasn\u2019t exactly the kind of player you traded, and in the days before the deal was complete, Pittsburgh general manager Ray Shero offered him a 10-year, $60 million deal to stay, during a time when the salary cap was far less forgiving and a week before Sidney Crosby received a 12-year deal.<\/p>\n
Some screamed out in delight, simply excited about their team making a trade, details be damned.<\/p>\n
Some screamed because the Staal drama was over, understanding that Staal didn\u2019t particularly want to leave Pittsburgh but did want to play with his brother, Eric, in Carolina<\/a>.<\/p>\n Some screamed because it was the end of a special era, when the Penguins weren\u2019t just the youngest team in the league; they were the best.<\/p>\n That moment changed everything for the Penguins and paved the way to future success, even though they didn\u2019t realize it at the time. Ultimately, Shero had no leverage. Staal loved his time and Pittsburgh but loved the idea of playing with his brother even more.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not like I wanted to leave,\u201d Staal told The Athletic earlier this season. \u201cI knew we\u2019d win more championships in Pittsburgh, and that was a hard thing to leave. I love that place.\u201d<\/p>\n But he wanted to play with his brother. Shero knew it. Jim Rutherford, then Carolina\u2019s general manager, knew it. And Rutherford knew that Shero knew.<\/p>\n So, Rutherford had all the leverage and could have acquired Staal for peanuts. Otherwise, Staal simply would have left after the 2012-13 season via free agency, with Pittsburgh getting nothing in return.<\/p>\n Instead of taking advantage of Shero\u2019s predicament, Rutherford offered an extraordinary fair trade \u2014 maybe even an overpay, given how well Dumoulin played in the Penguins\u2019 Stanley Cup years of 2016 and 2017.<\/p>\n Penguins brass, namely Mario Lemieux, Ron Burkle and David Morehouse, were so blown away by Rutherford\u2019s generosity that night that, when they needed a new general manager two years later, and Rutherford was available, they immediately spoke with him. The rest is history.<\/p>\n Staal\u2019s story in Raleigh is still being written, and his legacy there is difficult to analyze.<\/p>\n He has scored 20 goals in a season six times in his NHL career, four of them in Pittsburgh. His career-high of 29 came during his rookie season when, at 18, he nearly scored 30 goals while on Evgeni Malkin\u2019s left wing. Staal\u2019s best goals-per-game total came in his final season in Pittsburgh with 25 goals in 60 games.<\/p>\n In 14 seasons with Carolina, he never scored more than 20 goals. One of the reasons he left Pittsburgh, other than playing with his brother, was that he believed himself to be a legitimate top-six center. While playing with the Penguins, he was never going to receive that opportunity, not with prime Crosby and Malkin blocking his way. Staal could have played wing, but that would have been wasting his wondrous defensive ability, and everyone knew it.<\/p>\n Hindsight being 20\/20, Staal was simply meant to be hockey\u2019s best third-line center. First, he had to find out how good he could be at the position, and he wanted to play with his brother. Fair enough.<\/p>\n Along the way, Staal found his game again, especially in recent seasons. At 37 this season, he reached 20 goals for the first time in a decade. Throughout these years, he\u2019s always been a defensive monster. Malkin hasn\u2019t scored a goal in Raleigh in almost a decade. For that, you can thank Staal, who matches up against Malkin and always shuts him down. Malkin isn\u2019t the only one to fall victim to that.<\/p>\n Something else is evident if you spend any time around the Hurricanes: Staal has become an impressive captain.<\/p>\n Seeing him in this role is strange for Pittsburgh fans, because Staal, to so many in Western Pennsylvania, is still the 18-year-old who scored seven short-handed goals. But he is, by all accounts, a great captain. You can feel it in the Hurricanes locker room. Quiet by nature, he\u2019s come out of his shell. Back in March, everyone in the Hurricanes locker room gathered around him after a morning skate. There were no pep talks, no strategy discussions. They just wanted to be around him because he is their leader.<\/p>\n Those leadership intangibles were on display long ago. In 2009, Nicklas Lidstrom and the suffocating Detroit Red Wings defense largely slowed down Crosby and Malkin. The Red Wings were so good that they wouldn\u2019t let the two best players in the sport beat them.<\/p>\n So, Staal did.<\/p>\n He scored the goal that changed the tide of the series in Game 4, with his short-handed goal serving as one of the biggest in franchise history.<\/p>\n Staal opened the scoring in Game 6, when the Penguins were down 3-2 in the series with their backs against the wall.<\/p>\n Then, in Game 7, he played the game of his life as Crosby departed halfway through the second period with a knee injury.<\/p>\n Staal was still basically a child then, but he never played like one.<\/p>\n Watching him play in this Stanley Cup Final \u2014 he scored a goal in Game 1 despite Carolina\u2019s 5-4 loss<\/a> to the Vegas Golden Knights, then picked up another in the Hurricanes\u2019 Game 2 overtime win<\/a> \u2014 reminded me of the conversation I had with him earlier this season. Winning is so important to him, and yet he bypassed more championships in Pittsburgh in favor of family. He also hoped that, one day, no matter how long it took, perhaps he\u2019d have a chance to get his name on the Stanley Cup again.<\/p>\n All these years later, Staal has his chance. He knows getting to four wins will be hard, but he\u2019s a master of the long game.<\/p>\n After all, he\u2019s played it well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PITTSBURGH \u2014 If you were there, you can still hear the noise. Around 9 p.m. on June 22,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":212441,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[10171,73,75,74,1067],"class_list":["post-212440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-carolina-hurricanes","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-pittsburgh-penguins"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212440"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212440\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}