UNIONDALE, N.Y. — Jordan Staal remains with the Carolina Hurricanes a day after breaking a bone in his right leg, but the exact prognosis will not be known until at least Thursday when Staal returns to Raleigh for X-rays and an MRI.
Hurricanes coach Bill Peters said Staal’s bone break was in the “ankle area,” but the team is awaiting further word from doctors when the club returns home following Wednesday night’s pre-season game against the New York Islanders. Staal went down in the third period against Buffalo on Tuesday on a hit by Sabres defenceman Josh Gorges.
“It’s a huge blow for us,” Peters said.
Initial imaging showed the bone break, but additional tests are required because swelling still remains in Staal’s lower right leg region.
Staal’s brother Eric, Carolina’s veteran captain, said his younger sibling spirits are “okay,” but that “he’s not really doing a lot of moving.”
Peters addressed Staal’s injury with the Hurricanes during the team’s morning workouts at Nassau Colisseum.
”We don’t have one guy that can replace him, but by a group or committee effort we can,” Peters said. “He does so many things for us. We don’t have a 6-foot-4, 230-pound centre to plug in. So we’re going to find a way.”
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Eric echoed the message.
“We’re going to have to do it collectively,” he said. “It’s not going to be one person that does what he does. There’s not many who can do what he can do.”
One option Peters is contemplating is taking 2013 first-round pick Elias Lindholm off the wall and moving him to the middle. The Hurricanes will experiment different options on both the power play and penalty kill.
Losing Staal long-term is a massive blow for the Hurricanes, and personally for the captain. Eric said Jordan was as driven as he’d ever seen him in off-ice workouts this summer.
“You can’t really describe the frustration. It’s difficult,” the captain said. “But sulking and being sorry about it isn’t going to help you, or anyone around you. I know Jordan is treating it that way.
“It’s a tough pill for him right now, but you can’t sulk and you have to rebound and pick yourself back up and he’ll do that, and we’ll do that as a team.”