Burnside: Staal's Road To Becoming The Perfect Leader For The Canes

RALEIGH, NC. - The news came to The Captain during his wedding dinner on June 22, 2012.

"You don't know the story?"

Jordan Staalseems a bit incredulous that even after a decade has passed the story doesn't instantly come into focus. It certainly does for him.

"It was in the middle of my wedding," the Carolina Hurricanes captain recalled. "I want to say it was in between appetizers and the main course. We were sitting at the main table and my agent at the time, Paul Krepelka, who is now in Florida (with the Panthers' executive team) he came kind of swiftly to the table and I didn't really see him coming and he's like 'you've just been traded to Carolina.' And I was like, oh."

Talk about a life-changing moment in the middle of a, well, life-changing moment.

"All of a sudden the phones started going off a little bit. Kind of the whole room kind of went into a little bit of a hush in the middle of our wedding which is unusual," Staal said. "It was a little weird. And a lot of emotion that day for sure."

Even the night before, guests in Thunder Bay had an inkling that something was afoot for Staal and his new bride Heather.

"I knew something could happen. Even the night before we had all of the out-of-town guests together and obviously most of them were my buddies from Pittsburgh. And in Thunder Bay you get TSN on TV in the bar and it says 'Jordan Staal turns down a 10-year deal' and everyone's looking at me. And I'm like, yeah, let's turn this off here,'" Staal said with a rueful chuckle.

"But was I sure I was going to get traded the next day? No. I still had a year on the contract and I wasn't sure if they were going to keep me or try to sign me or whatnot. I wasn't exactly sure what was going to happen. We didn't line up that wedding with that decision very good but obviously it turned out the way it did," Staal said.

It would be a moment that would change everything for a young hockey player and his new bride, and his new team and the community that would become home to them for going on a decade.

It wouldn't be all roses and rainbows. Far from it. It's life we're talking here.

There would be long days and nights and tragedy and healing and injuries and a long, slow climb both personally and professionally to a place of not just great success but of comfort and peace of mind.

And sitting in the empty dining area on the arena level of PNC Arena fewer than 48 hours from the Hurricanes' opening game of the 2022 Stanley Cup Playoffs, it's hard to imagine Jordan Staal anywhere else, hard to imagine him wearing anything but that 'C' placed prominently on his jersey with the familiar #11.

The first time we met Jordan Staal was in the Staal family's hometown of Thunder Bay, Ontario where parents Henry and Linda have run a sod farm for years. It was the summer of 2006 and the Hurricanes were Stanley Cup champions and a young Eric Staal was enjoying his day with the Stanley Cup. When the Staal boys, Jordan, Marc, and Jared, were asked to pose for pictures with the Cup you needed a wide-angle lens as none wanted to get too close to the great silver trophy and they certainly weren't interested in touching it.

Three years later, after losing in the final in 2008, Jordan Staal was holding the Cup himself after Pittsburgh's dramatic Game 7 win in Detroit.

But over the next couple of seasons, Staal felt he needed a change and began to contemplate what his career might look like outside of Pittsburgh.

Of course, playing with one of his three brothers in the NHL was a dream the boys had all held since they were young and that part of his trade to the Hurricanes has exceeded expectations.

"Obviously we were both excited. Heather was super excited obviously. She loves Tanya (Eric's wife) and the boys were so much fun. We had a great time outside the game, probably a little bit more than the game itself here early. Memories that I'll never forget," Staal said.

Staal ended up buying a house near his brother, probably a bigger spread than a young couple needed, but they figured they'd grow into it, and well, didn't we mention this is life, not some sort of movie script?

But if that part, sharing life as an NHLer with his older brother, was more fulfilling than they could have imagined, well, maybe the nightmare is too strong for what was happening on the ice. But maybe it's not.

Staal was 17 when he showed up at the Penguins' training camp in 2006 after the Penguins had made him the second overall pick at that '06 draft. He turned 18 during training camp and scored 29 goals in his rookie season.

The Penguins made the playoffs in the first of what would be 16 straight postseason appearances and then they went to the final in Staal's second season, 2008. He was the best skater on the Penguins as they lost in the finals in six games to Detroit. The next year it was his turn to host a day with the Cup in Thunder Bay after a thrilling Game 7 win in Detroit.

The Penguins made the playoffs the next three years leading up to Staal's trade to Carolina.

He would wait six more long years before stepping onto the ice for an NHL playoff game. Six years in the prime of his career. In two of those playoff-less years with the Hurricanes, 2016 and 2017, Pittsburgh won back-to-back Cups with some of the players who had been in attendance at his wedding that fateful night.

"Yeah, it was very difficult," Staal said. "For sure outside of hockey was fantastic. In the game was very difficult. For me selfishly, personally, making the decision to come down here and really struggling a little bit personally in my game, but also as a team and then making that decision to leave Pittsburgh and watching them do what they did and win Cups. All that stuff made that hard."

But Staal dug. He dug in and worked to make it a better hockey place even after Eric was traded to the New York Rangers at the 2016 trade deadline. Maybe that's why what has happened here the last four years is so important and so meaningful given all that history, all those disappointments that had come before.

"As it went on, I was invested in here and I was giving whatever I could to help make the playoffs and turn it around. The original decision, the first years and really struggling was very hard for me. There were some dark nights after games. It wasn't easy," Staal said. Eric's departure complicated things. Eric was the captain. He was part of the allure that brought Staal to Raleigh. Then there was the question of who would follow in wearing the captain's 'C'. It wasn't something that Staal aspired to or even felt he was qualified to do. At least not in the beginning.

"I take it very seriously. I've respected every leader I've played for," he said.

And if you have spent any time around Staal, a father of three, you know that this was a decision that was not to be made in a cavalier manner. If he was going to do the job, and make no mistake being the captain of an NHL team is a job, a full-time job on top of everything else that comes with being an NHL player, he was going to do it right.

"I've struggled with doubts in my mind whether I can do it or not. I think especially, right when Eric left they asked me right away and I was just like kind of in shock really. You just traded my brother and you ask me to lead the team that I came to play with him?" Staal said. "And so all that stuff was running through my mind. Was I ready? Do I want to continue these non-playoff droughts with another Staal as captain and all that stuff? Do I really want to carry that load really? Am I ready for it and all that stuff? There was doubt in my mind."

So he waited and kept grinding. The team went without a captain after Eric's trade and then Staal and Justin Faulk shared the duties in an awkward system introduced by then-coach Bill Peters and then Justin Williams wore the 'C' in his final full season 2018-19.

Staal has been the full-time captain ever since. But even before the letter formalized the post, he was slowly but surely growing into the role that now seems to fit him like a glove.

"I waited a few years and really it started to kind of turn more into my team," Staal said. "I could feel it right when Eric left, obviously it was his team so that didn't really feel the same. But as the years went on more and more I felt ready and comfortable and obviously Roddy gave me that extra boost of confidence. You know what he's like, he's an easy one to back up. He's the one that's been a solid foundation for this group."

Ah yes, Rod Brind'Amour. Not just the coach of the Hurricanes, but the captain of the team when they won their only Stanley Cup in 2006, back when Staal's older brother, Eric, was just a kid.

Brind'Amour took over as head coach in the summer of 2018. There is something more than a little symbiotic about the relationship between Brind'Amour and Staal, and there is a direct line to be drawn from the fact the team has made the playoffs in four straight seasons under Brind'Amour, a first for the franchise, and the evolution of Staal as captain.

They speak the same language. They share the same vision. And that permeates the team and how they prepare and play. Without it?
"Well, it wouldn't work," Brind'Amour said.

But it does work.

"I've known him for a long, long time before he was captain. I've worked with him, so we have a good relationship that way," Brind'Amour added. "I think being on the same page helps. He knows what I expect. I know what he expects. He's the leader of the team and you can see it's pretty much what I want to have happen, he makes sure it happens. I don't ever have to call him in and say you've got to do this or that, it's very rare. It's worked for sure."

Maybe it's different with other teams, but Brind'Amour and Staal don't have scheduled meetings to go over the inner workings of the team. They're not meeting for lunch or going to a boardroom. But what lacks in formality in their exchanges doesn't lack for importance.

"Roddy's a very simple coach to play for," Staal said. "It's show up, work, give it everything you got and the rest of it will take care itself. That's how I've always approached my game from the start. That makes it easy. Then, as for the day-to-day stuff, there's the odd time there might be something bothering me personally, or what's going on with the group."

"And for whatever reason I feel comfortable just after practice kind of bs'ing with him on the ice. That always seems to be where we find each other a little bit more than in the office. Feels a little cramped in there," Staal said. "He's a simple coach that demands simple things and it lines up with the way I've always wanted to play the game. I think everyone in the group that he's brought in has been following that very well."

The captain has to be able to communicate the vision of the coaching staff and help identify issues or rifts within the locker room.

He has to regularly speak to the media about the state of the team and he has to know when to speak to the team about the state of the team. But the fulcrum of all of it is the coach and the captain.

"One hundred percent. Totally," Brind'Amour said. "Because I wasn't rah, rah either and on purpose. I always thought you have three times a year as a captain to come up and say your piece or do whatever, because if you're doing it all the time it becomes, guys are like ah, whatever."

"I don't even know that he's had to this year," Brind'Amour said. "But there'll be a time when he's going to have to stand up and he knows, okay, that he'll command the room. He commands the room. Again, I always talk about how he just does his business, of course that's how he leads."

Brind'Amour turns and points to Staal's name at the top of a list of names at the team's practice facility for workout supremacy.

"He just shows up at camp, he's the best shape guy, you don't have to say a word, drop the mic. That's the biggest voice is your actions. Done," Brind'Amour said.

The captains, the good ones anyway, shoulder an enormous responsibility when it comes to how a team operates both on and off the ice. The captains, the good ones anyway, are the ones that make sure new players feel comfortable. That means their partners and kids, if they have them, feel welcome and wanted. GM Don Waddell praises Staal's lead-by-example style, but there's more to building the kind of environment that Waddell, Brind'Amour and the rest of the coaching staff have been striving to create in Carolina these past four seasons.

You can talk identity and culture but someone has to put the work in to make those things.

"There's more stuff going on obviously off the ice as the captain. It's really getting everyone to feel comfortable and really honestly, it's been my wife. She's been huge in that part," Staal said of Heather and their role in creating the proper environment, not just for teammates, but their families.

"I have leaned on her a lot - happy wife, happy life. She's been making sure that every girl that comes in here feels comfortable," Staal said. "A lot of guys have girls, so that's a big thing. Obviously the rest of the guys is everyone just shows up, plays hockey and finds a good place to live. It's pretty simple for the guys. The girls have a few more questions, especially when they start to have kids and everything like that. All those things when we start adding guys. The first questions are, does he have a girl? Does he have kids? What's the situation? And you kind of just make sure you're crossing all the t's. All the things that I would be thinking about if I'm moving to a new team and what I would want to know. How I can make that transition as comfortable as possible?"

Paul Krepelka has known the Staal family for years. At one point he represented all four Staal brothers. He calls the confluence of Staal's wedding and trade to Carolina "one for the ages."

When Tom Dundon bought the team in early 2018, Krepelka would join Waddell's management team and he got to see Staal flourish under head coach Brind'Amour.

"You've finally got a coach in Roddy who one 100% believes in him. Jordan feeds on that," Krepelka said. "He's been able to give Jordan comfort and peace. They're in tune with each other. I would argue that it's as close as any player/coach in the league, without question. They have an understanding."

One of the biggest changes Krepelka has seen is Staal has grown more and more comfortable in his own skin. After signing a 10-year extension days after being traded to Raleigh, Staal worried about living up to the deal.

"He internalizes a lot of stuff, more so when he was younger than he does now. He tried to live up to the contract and mentally beat himself up over and over," Krepelka said. "It was a burden, it was a huge burden on him."

But as he got older, and especially after Brind'Amour took over as head coach, Krepelka felt that Staal began to understand that his role and his value to the team weren't necessarily tied up in goals and assists. Instead he began to understand and be at peace with the intangibles - how he played, how he prepared, how he served as a role model in almost every aspect of the game, at the rink and away from the rink.

Sometimes being a mentor and a leader is in how you deal with your own life. Staal and Heather lost an infant daughter, Hannah, to a terminal birth defect. We have spoken to Staal about those moments and how his faith and the support of family, both blood relatives and the extended family of the organization, have helped the couple through incredible darkness.

"He's a special kid," Krepelka said. "He's been through a lot."

Along with the personal family challenges, there were injuries that also threatened Staal's career.

One day Krepelka came into the locker room when the team was on the road and Staal was rehabbing from a concussion and riding a stationary bike facing a blank wall because that was the only way he could manage the task.

"There were some tough talks going through some of that concussion stuff," Krepelka said. "Just talking about life and getting him through it."

We have spoken to Brind'Amour about the building of this team, the vision for what the Carolina Hurricanes might become. He believes deeply that it's all in the details, the small pieces that added together create something substantial and meaningful.

In some ways Staal epitomizes that. The commitment, the perseverance through dark and light.

We asked Nino Niederreiter with whom Staal has played along with Jesper Fast for most of the season, in what is arguably the team's most important line; consistency. That's it. Same dedication every day.

"The funny part is, he's just him. From the first day here, he's always so consistent, so professional, so committed to taking care of his body, being a pro, just leading by example obviously," added Sebastian Aho. "He takes care of the people around him. Treats everyone the same way. I was coming in my rookie season, he treated me the exact same that he treats me now. It's just awesome to see. He's a true leader. He's probably not the loudest guy who's always talking or yelling at the guys, but those things for young Sebastian, it was huge to just look from close distance and learn from one of the better leaders."

"He's been through some not so good years, building the playoff team, but still in the mindset that we're not just a playoff team, we're going to be the best team. That's the drive he has. The drive that I feel like the whole team and the organization has to get there," Aho said. "I can't say it's just him, but a lot is because of him and how he runs things here."

Nathan Gerbe sat beside Jordan in the locker room during some of his time in Carolina, there for three of Staal's early seasons with the Canes. He recalled how open and welcoming Staal and Heather were to he and his wife.

"Hard work and dedication. To me that's the sign of a leader," Gerbe said. "But the personal stuff? He's an even better person."

"I think he's a better player today than he has ever been in his career," Gerbe added. "And that's phenomenal."

You could go through most of Staal's teammates, past and present, and get more or less the same answers to questions about his presence and importance to the team.

"Everybody has another story, other than their hockey story, right?" Brind'Amour said. "Actually this is a small part of really what goes on, it just gets all the attention and so every guy in there has a story. Some are more touching, some are whatever, but everyone has dealt with something and obviously we know what he's had to deal with," Brind'Amour said of his captain. "Being a Hurricane for as long as he's been here, that adds just what you're talking about, that personal touch to it, because it means more. I mean it just does. When you've put so much into it and you've been here through all those years where it was just nothing going, not looking like it's going to turn the corner, to all of a sudden now we're knocking on the door. You want it more for guys like that. You just do."

Staal, as well as anyone, understands the path is long and fraught with all manner of pitfalls that might scuttle the best laid plans. Still, does he think about what that moment might be like, to take the Stanley Cup from Commissioner Gary Bettman?
He smiles.

"That's a good question. I literally have been kind of battling with that in my mind lately," Staal said. "Do I let that run through my mind a bit? Obviously it's exciting, but there's so much work to be had. I really don't try to dwell on that too much. Is it exciting? Yes. Obviously. But I know how long and how hard and how grueling it can be and how much things have to go right and how teams have to stay injury-free and all that stuff. It's something that I run through my mind every now and then. It excites me and there's nothing wrong with it. So I don't shun it away. But also don't dwell on it too much, because I know what's ahead of us.

Spoken like a true captain.

Worth A Click

Jordan Staal: Game One to Game 1000
Kochetkov Speaks: First NHL Interview
Mailbag #26: Round One Fun
Burnside: Raanta's Summer of Loss & Season of New Beginnings
Canes 2022 Playoffs Merch
Round One Tickets On Sale Now