WRAL Sports Fan

Hurricanes

Staal's streak of 349 consecutive games played will end

By Tim Hall

Nov 4, 2009

If head coach Paul Maurice's word means anything, then star center Eric Staal will not be on the ice Wednesday night when the Hurricanes travel to take on Florida.  And he probably will miss the team's two games this weekend against Toronto and Columbus.

Staal suffered an upper body injury in the third period of Sunday's 5-1 loss to San Jose.  Maurice spoke about Staal's status at practice on Tuesday.

"No I don't think it's day-to-day at this point. I would say it's week-to-week," Maurice said. "We're not expecting him for the weekend."

That will end Staal's iron-man like streak of 349 consecutive games played.  According to CarolinaHurricanes.com Staal ranks second among active players only behind Jay Bouwmeester's 354 and second in franchise history behind Dave Tippett's streak of 419 games played.

Mike Maniscalco, of  99.9 FM The Fan ESPN Radio, was at practice on Tuesday and he reported that Jussi Jokinen was centering a line with Tuomo Ruutu and Erik Cole. 

The injury to Staal comes at a bad time as the Hurricanes have lost nine straight games and have only seven points on the season.

"For the last 400 or something, he has been a standard in our game. There's no question he's been laboring," Maurice said. "There is great opportunity for other players to get more ice and Jokinen has always had the hand-set and brain-set to play."

The last Canes victory came against the Panthers in a 7-2 rout on Oct. 9 at the RBC Center.

They play the Panthers Wednesday night at 7:30 p.m.  Hear it live on 99.9 FM The Fan ESPN Radio with coverage starting at 6:30 p.m. with Maniscalco's Stormfront.