The Carolina Hurricanes will be without Jordan Staal for 1-2 months after their captain tore a calf muscle in warmups before Sunday’s 4-1 win at the Philadelphia Flyers. Rod Brind'Amour called it a long-term injury Tuesday, turning a pregame mishap into a problem that will reach deep into the middle of the season.
Staal matters because he does more than score. He leads Hurricanes forwards in short-handed ice time per game at 2:53 and has taken a team-high 124 face-offs, the kind of work that disappears only when a coach can replace it piecemeal. For readers searching Hurricanes Hockey now, the reason is simple: this is not a one-game absence, but a stretch that can reshape Carolina’s center depth and special teams through the next month or two.
Staal’s recent scoring has not driven the story. He has no points in six games this season, but his value has been built over years in Carolina, where he has 499 points in 978 regular-season games. In 2025-26, he had 36 points, including 20 goals and 16 assists, in 75 regular-season games. He also remains one of the most significant postseason players in team history, with 49 playoff points and 108 playoff games, tied with Sebastian Aho for the most in franchise history.
The strange part is how the injury happened. Brind'Amour said it came in warmups, not in the heat of play, yet the recovery window still runs to two months. That leaves Carolina trying to replace a captain who handles the toughest matchups every night and frees up other forwards to take easier minutes. Mark Jankowski moved into Staal’s usual spot on the third line between Nikolaj Ehlers and Jordan Martinook, and he responded with a goal in 15:48 of ice time against the Flyers, including 2:49 short-handed. He has now scored in four straight games, but one hot stretch does not equal Staal’s workload.
That is the job Carolina now faces. Brind'Amour said the club will have to keep figuring it out, and the math is unforgiving: one player is gone for weeks, while the minutes he usually absorbs have to be spread around the lineup. If Staal’s rehab stays on the shorter end of the timeline, the Hurricanes can survive it. If it drifts toward two months, they will have to make do without the one forward built to erase the kinds of problems this injury creates.
