Hurricanes’ Jordan Staal out with lower-body injury

Carolina Hurricanes center and captain Jordan Staal missed the team’s win over the Philadelphia Flyers on the road on Sunday night, and head coach Rod Brind’Amour’s postgame update suggested a possibility that he may not immediately return to the lineup.

“It kind of came up last minute,” Brind’Amour told the media, including team reporter Walt Ruff. “Hopefully it’s nothing serious and won’t keep him out too long.”

Staal, who won the Conn Smythe in June for his efforts during the Hurricanes’ run to their second Stanley Cup championship in franchise history, has been held without a point through his first six appearances of the new season.

With Staal out of the lineup, Mark Jankowski jumped up into Staal’s usual spot on the third line alongside wingers Nikolaj Ehlers and Jordan Martinook. Jankowski notched a goal in the third period to tally to extend his goalscoring streak to four games.

Staal is playing in the last year of a four-year contract that carries a salary cap hit of $2.975 million. Rather than allowing his captain to potentially hit unrestricted free agency, Carolina general manager Eric Tulsky was proactive in working out an extension over the summer, signing the Thunder Bay, Ontario native to a one-year contract for the 2027-28 season with $4.9 million in base compensation and up to $5.1 million in performance bonuses.

The reigning champions got their season off on the wrong foot with an overtime loss to the Florida Panthers and blowout loss to the Washington Capitals to start 0-1-1, but the Canes have rattled off five consecutive victories since to jump right back to first place in the Metropolitan Division.

The Hurricanes will get another crack at their Metro foes in their next game on Tuesday night, when the Capitals return to Raleigh for what will be Alex Ovechkin’s final regular season game in the Lenovo Center.