Would a Cup win be enough to make Jordan Staal a Hall of Famer?
Whenever another Stanley Cup champion is on the verge of getting crowned, the impact on certain players’ legacies always gets discussed. With the Stanley Cup Final between the Vegas Golden Knights and Carolina Hurricanes set to kick off on Tuesday, players such as Vegas’ Jack Eichel and Mitch Marner, or Carolina’s Sebastian Aho and Taylor Hall are looking to cement their place in hockey’s history books.
One potentially underlooked player looking to make his career enshrinable with a Stanley Cup victory is Hurricanes captain Jordan Staal. Now in his 20th NHL season, Staal has already won a Stanley Cup with the Pittsburgh Penguins back in 2009. Staal’s career numbers (747 points in 1403 regular season games) don’t jump out as Hall of Fame-worthy, but two Stanley Cup championships with two different teams could put him on the bubble of Hall of Fame consideration.
On Tuesday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, hosts Tyler Yaremchuk and Carter Hutton were joined by The Sheet‘s Jeff Marek to discuss Staal’s Hall of Fame case should he should he hoist the Stanley Cup once more.
Carter Hutton: The one that for me is an interesting one is Jordan Staal. The amount of games played, he’s won a Cup with Pittsburgh. If he goes on to win another Cup, does he start to be in the Hall of Fame conversation?
Jeff Marek: Yes, he does. Stanley Cups with multiple teams. One of the things that players seem to really love and really respect is, how long did you play? How many games did you play? I was talking to Erik Johnson yesterday, and we were talking about the 2006 draft. He went first overall. I said “Who’s going to win that draft?” Of all the players that are still there, Nick Foligno, Claude Giroux, Jordan Staal, Brad Marchand, Jonathan Toews, etc., who’s going to be the last guy standing? He said Jordan Staal. Jordan Staal’s already played 1400 games, and he thinks he’s going to be the last one standing out of that entire bunch.
I really do believe that longevity is a thing, and longevity needs to be considered when you’re looking at the Hockey Hall of Fame. Whenever I talk to players, and Hutts you’re probably the same way, before they talk about goals and points and all these things, they say “he played 15 years, that guy played 20 years, that guy played 1500 games.” The amount of games I think as fans we devalue, but players hold on to that like it’s sacred. It’s a real badge of honor for players, and you guys have heard me say before, you can’t lie to players. Players know what matters and players know what doesn’t matter.
You can catch the full discussion and the rest of Tuesday’s episode here…