Marc Staal set to join brothers at 1,000 games played, make NHL history
Red Wings defenseman to reach milestone previously achieved by Eric, Jordan
© Jennifer Pottheiser/Getty Images
They'd argue over who was who, but on any given day they were pretending to be Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Joe Sakic and Doug Gilmour.
"We grew up like a normal Canadian family just playing hockey and having fun with it," Jordan said. "It grew into something much bigger than us."
Bigger and now historic.
When Marc, a defenseman for the Detroit Red Wings, plays against the Calgary Flames at Scotiabank Saddledome on Saturday (7 p.m. ET; SN360, SNW, BSDET, ESPN+, NHL LIVE), the 35-year-old will become the third Staal brother to reach the 1,000-game milestone, making him, Eric and Jordan the first three brothers to each play in 1,000 NHL games.
Eric has played in 1,293 NHL games, and Jordan, the captain of the Carolina Hurricanes, will be playing in his 1,070th NHL game on Saturday.
"It's kind of surreal, to be honest," said Marc, who played game No. 999 against the Minnesota Wild on Thursday. "It's been our whole lives and I think we're all just grateful that we had the opportunity to play as long as we have been. It's a cool thing. I don't think we would have gotten to where we are without each other. I think it has helped us push each other along the way, challenge each other and encourage each other."
Their dad, Henry Staal, said he remembers watching the boys on the outdoor rink and thinking two things:
"About how much they just enjoyed it," he said. "Plus, it definitely gave them a leg up on kids that had no access to an outdoor rink."
The competition would be fun and fierce all at once, Jordan said.
"We're all pretty crazy so we had lots of fun with that," he said. "That was our time-killer, our fun. Did it sharpen our skills a little bit and make us better athletes? Probably, yeah, but we didn't think much of it growing up, it was just us playing."
The NHL was only in their dreams until Eric left home at 15 years old to play for Peterborough in the Ontario Hockey League.
He was the 13th pick in the 2000 OHL Draft, scored 49 points (19 goals, 30 assists) in 63 games in 2000-01, 62 points (23 goals, 39 assists) in 2001-02 and 98 points (39 goals, 59 assists) in 66 games as an 18-year-old in 2002-03.
The Hurricanes selected him with the No. 2 pick in the 2003 NHL Draft.
"We're like, 'OK, I see Eric do that, I'm as good as Eric, I play with him every day on the outdoor rink, so I can do that,' " Marc said. "Then to see Eric get drafted into the NHL at No. 2 it was like, 'OK, Eric is getting the shot, why can't I?' "
Eric played in his first NHL game on Oct. 9, 2003, 20 days before his 19th birthday.
"Eric's first game, I was still fairly young, 15 years old, so I was kind of in shock, really," Jordan said. "But once I saw it I was like, 'Alright, let's do this, I want that.' From then on out that was all I was focused on and for all of us it took off from there."
Eric played in his 1,000th game with the Minnesota Wild on March 19, 2017. He has scored 1,034 points (441 goals, 593 assists) in 17 seasons with Hurricanes, Rangers, Wild, Buffalo Sabres and Montreal Canadiens. He won the Stanley Cup with the Hurricanes in 2006. The 37-year-old has not officially retired from the NHL and played for Canada at the 2022 Beijing Olympics.
Jordan followed Eric to Peterborough and as a No. 2 pick to the Pittsburgh Penguins in the 2006 NHL Draft.
Jordan made his NHL debut on Oct. 5, 2006 and got to 1,000 games played on April 12, 2021. The 33-year-old has scored 596 points (249 goals, 347 assists) in 16 seasons with the Penguins and Hurricanes, winning the Stanley Cup with Pittsburgh in 2009.
Marc, selected by the New York Rangers with the No. 12 pick in the 2005 NHL Draft, made his NHL debut on Oct. 4, 2007 after playing four seasons with Sudbury of the OHL.
He has scored 208 points (47 goals, 161 assists) in 15 NHL seasons, reaching the Stanley Cup Final with the Rangers in 2014.
"I always feel when you're the first one to go through stuff nobody knows and there's no extra eyeballs, but for those guys, because I had made it and I had success early in my career, there were a lot of people watching them," Eric said. "For them to carve out the careers and be as special as they've been is really, really cool."
Jordan and the Penguins defeated Marc and the Rangers in five games in the second round of the 2008 Stanley Cup Playoffs. Jordan and the Penguins swept Eric, then with the Hurricanes, in the 2009 Eastern Conference Final.
Jordan and Marc also played against each other in the best-of-7 Stanley Cup Qualifiers in 2020; Carolina swept New York 3-0. The brothers have faced each other 54 times in the regular season.
Eric and Marc played against each other 34 times in the regular season. They were teammates for 20 games with the Rangers at the end of the 2015-16 season.
Jordan and Eric played against each other 30 times in the NHL and were teammates in Carolina from 2012-16.
"When we play against each other, it's like spending time together without really spending time together," Marc said.
There has been controversy, like when Eric's shoulder-to-head hit on Marc on Feb. 22, 2011 left his brother with a concussion.
"I missed the first 36 games the next year because of that one," Marc said.
Said Eric, "For sure I wish it didn't happen and I didn't finish the way I did, but that was how we competed against each other always. It just happened that I caught him in the wrong spot at the wrong time."
Jordan said he remembers the response from their mother.
"She wasn't too happy," Jordan said. "But, hey, growing up we were all kind of nuts, a little competitive, and that's no different now."
Hard feelings didn't linger. Marc leaned on Eric as he was dealing with concussion symptoms, because as an NHL player, his older brother understood what it was like for him to be injured, to miss games and to deal with something out of his control.
"I think about how blessed we are to be able to play this game as brothers and really understand exactly what each other are going through, the tough times and the good times," Jordan said. "If one of us was a sod farmer back home we just wouldn't have that same connection. We all connect so well because of this game."
Jared doesn't share the same connection because he played mostly in the minor leagues, appearing in two NHL games with the Hurricanes in 2012-13, although both of those games were as teammates with Jordan and Eric.
But the 31-year-old is carving a new career as an associate coach with the Orlando Solar Bears of the ECHL.
It wouldn't surprise his brothers if Jared became the next Staal to 1,000 NHL games, as a coach, not a player.
"One day I'm going to sit here at night and have my white board and go, 'Wait a minute, there's no games to watch,'" Henry said. "Not that I can't watch a game, but there will be a time when none of the boys are playing. Then it's going to hit me and then I'll sit there and look back and say, 'What a run, what a ride.'"
