Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Nicole Tracey
When someone mentions the name Jordan Staal, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Well for some it’s, “over paid third line center” or “Jordan Staal? We should have traded that guy!”, but for others, Jordan Staal brings to mind; power, animal, the center of the best third line in the NHL, great on the PK, ROAR, and lastly that long reach. There is no doubt Staalsy is a huge part of this team, by working hard on the PK, using his power move to draw a penalty, or just being an absolutely horse on the ice and the NHL took notice of that.
On Tuesday Jordan Staal at the age of 21, was announced as a finalist for the Frank J. Selke Trophy. The Selke Trophy is presented annually “to the forward who best excels in the defensive aspects of the game.” Along with Jordan, the Detroit Red Wings Pavel Datsyuk and the Vancouver Canucks Ryan Kesler were also nominated. For a first time nominee, that some pretty tough competition.
In Staalsy 4th season in the NHL, he’s hit the 20 goal plateau for the third time and has tied his career high in points with 49, which ranked him 4th on the team. Along with his 49 points and 21 goals, Jordan led the team with a career -best plus-19 rating and ranked third with 41 takeaways. Staal also saw 3:20 shorthanded minutes of ice time per game, the third-highest total among forwards in the league, while helping the Penguins finish the season with the NHL’s ninth-best penalty killing unit with a success rate of 84.1 percent.
Let’s take this into consideration, Ryan Kelser is a +1 when skating with the Canuck’s top 6, Datsyuk is +17 with Zetterberg and Franzen, Staal is +19 with Tyler Kennedy and Matt Cooke. (via PensHotStove) Need I say more?
I don’t think we could really say one bad thing about Jordan Staal regarding his PK skills and neither can Flower, “I think he is a guy who works hard every night,” Marc-Andre Fleury said. “He always plays against the other team’s top line along with TK and Cookie. … I just feel safe when he is on the ice. He is great on the PK.” Take Jordan Staal out, your 84.1 percent success rate could be down the drain.
In my opinion, of course it will be bias, Jordan Staal should win the Selke. This kid is only going to get better, and we have seen that all season. When he is centering his Sesame Street Line, killing off penalties, or scoring a series changing shorthanded goal in the finals, I’ll be glad Jordan Staal is centering our third line.
"I think he is very well-deserving. I think sometimes he gets overlooked because of the guys we have on our team, but his game is so complete. He is a big part of our team so it is nice and well-deserving that he gets recognized like that." - Captain Sidney
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