LeBrun: "Heart-to-heart" could happen between Hurricanes' Francis, Eric Staal

Pierre LeBrun was on Edmonton’s TSN 1260 on Monday afternoon.

On Jordan Staal’s return to the lineup, if LeBrun sees him as a Hurricane for life, and whether Jordan’s departure could be part of a complete rebuild:

“Well, I mean I think it starts with Eric Staal before anyone else.

“I think Jordan Staal’s return tonight is important in the sense that I think Ron Francis, the GM, has wanted to wait and see what his team looks like when they finally have most of their pieces actually together. So over the next couple of weeks, how does it actually work when we finally have Eric Staal AND Jordan Staal both playing, first of all. Is this a team that can actually be more competitive and is better than their cellar-dwelling record? Or, is it not that big a difference and is it time to rebuild this thing? And I think Ron Francis is waiting to really answer that question for himself.

“I think part of answering that question is that sometime in the next month or two months, I think that Ron Francis is going to have to sit down with Eric Staal and have a heart-to-heart with the captain and say, ‘Where is this all headed? Do you want to be part of what we have to do here, or not?’

“I think there’s a real important conversation that has to happen between the franchise face and the GM if indeed the sense is this thing has to be blown up and rebuilt.

“So it could be awfully interesting and interesting because obviously Eric Staal controls his future with his no-movement clause, but also interesting because Eric knows full-well his brother signed in Carolina to play with him, and I think that’s an important aspect to all of this.

“So to be determined, as we say, but I think Carolina has got some decisions to make.”

Source: TSN 1260/ Transcript: Nichols on Hockey