Per NHL.com:

Carolina captain Eric Staal talks to his brother Marc a couple of times each week, hoping one day soon the New York Rangers defenseman will tell him the headaches are gone and his hockey career can resume.

The concern is more than just brotherly compassion. It was Eric’s hit on Marc during a game at RBC Center in Raleigh on Feb. 22 that is the reason why the Rangers’ No. 1 defenseman remains out indefinitely. Marc still is suffering from concussion symptoms believed to be a result of Eric’s hit that day.

“I wouldn’t say it has kept me awake at night, but it’s tough,” Eric Staal told NHL.com. “If I could take it back I probably wouldn’t hit him knowing where we’ve gone and what has gone on since then. But it was one of those plays, bang-bang, happens so quickly, and I hit him hard.”

Carolina will visit the Rangers on Friday after facing the Devils in New Jersey on Tuesday.

Eric Staal caught Marc with his head down along the half-wall on the left side of the Hurricanes’ zone late in the first period. Marc’s stick was tied up by Joni Pitkanen, who got a hooking penalty on the play, and Eric knocked Marc off his skates with a shoulder-to-shoulder hit.

“Clearly it’s a family member and you care about him,” Carolina coach Paul Maurice told NHL.com, “but it was a clean hit, he was doing the right thing and it was a bad, bad result.”

Eric said he didn’t realize who he hit until immediately after the collision. He said he never has hit Marc that hard at any point in their long history of competing against one another, a history that began when they were pre-teens skating on the family farm in Thunder Bay, Ont.

“I mean, if it was anyone else I would have done the same thing,” Eric said. “That’s the hard part about it. It’s total hindsight, and it doesn’t change anything. He knows that, I know that. That’s the way it is.”

But all the understanding between the brothers does not change the fact that, according to Eric, Marc is not close to returning to the ice. The Rangers have not made Marc Staal available for media interviews since training camp. The New York defenseman is listed as out indefinitely.

“It’s a process — a slow process, but it’s a process,” Eric said. “He will be back. He’s going to play again. His career in hockey isn’t over. It’s going to take some time, but he needs to make sure he’s thinking about himself and his future, making sure he’s fully 100-percent healthy, because if you don’t, those things can linger for a long time. He has, and now it’s about being smart about what you’re doing to get back.”

Eric said Marc is living normally, but the headaches come back when he exerts himself physically, which was the problem he encountered this summer, too.

“It was a back-and-forth battle,” Eric said, referring to Marc’s summer training regimen. “For most of the summer he started to feel good, then started pushing himself too hard and he started going back down the other road. It was difficult to see him going through that.

“Right now he’s on the right track, and it’s about staying on that track.”

Per Puck Daddy:

For all the reasons we stated back in November — and a dash of anxiety over Sidney Crosby’s health — Eric Staal of the Carolina Hurricanes is an NHL All-Star Game captain.

He’ll be joined by Nicklas Lidstrom of the Detroit Red Wings, which is really a tremendous way to spotlight an unmitigated hockey deity near the end of his career. (Although, the way he’s playing, there’s a chance he could still be on the Wings’ blue line at the end of DiPietro’s contract term.)

Now that the captains are chosen, what do you expect Team Staal vs. Team Lidstrom will shape up like? A few considerations:

Conferences: Despite an attempt to shed the conference vs. conference tradition, we have one captain from the East and one from the West. Will this lead to familiarity or a desire to shake things up by reaching “across the aisle”? In other words: Lidstrom’s a captain, he’s the only Red Wing, and there are a whole lotta Chicago Blackhawks on the board …

Nationalism: Will Staal be predisposed to choose Team Canada teammates? Will Lidstrom go for the best Swede on the board (even if it means alienating that Swede’s twin brother)? And if so, is there actually a chance Erik Karlsson won’t be the last defenseman picked? Speaking of which …

The Other Staal: Eric Staal spoke with NHL.com earlier this month about his brother, Marc Staal of the New York Rangers, being in the draft pool. From Dave Lozo:

Q: If you’re are an All-Star captain and it happened to come down to choosing either Cam Ward or Marc Staal, who would you take?

Staal: (Laughing) Cam Ward, for sure. Marc Staal would be real near the bottom if he’s in there, for sure. He’d be a first-timer so he’d be at the end, for sure.

Well at least we’re pretty sure where Cam Ward’s ending up. Unless Lidstrom has a wicked sense of humor about this stuff.

We still don’t know the alternate captains; Sidney Crosby’s health should factor into that decision as well. But based on what you assume about Team Staal and Team Lidstrom, what do you expect out of their NHL All-Star Fantasy Drafts?

Per NHL.com:

Carolina Hurricanes coach Paul Maurice held Eric Staal out of the second half of Monday’s exhibition game at Ice Palace for his own safety and the well being of his young team.

Outside of a half-inch bloody gash on his nose, Staal was not injured despite repeatedly being targeted by the SKA St. Petersburg players throughout the first period and into the first 10 minutes of the second. He did not return to the bench for the third period as Carolina fell to the KHL club, 5-3, in the 2010 Compuware NHL Premiere Challenge game.

“It seemed like they were getting closer and closer to his knees and there wasn’t a big concern on the ice about it,” Maurice said. “He’s a National Hockey League star player and he should be playing against National Hockey League players.”

Staal said his knees were specifically targeted twice by SKA players, and after the second time Maurice said enough.

It was 6:34 into the second period when Maxim Rybin dove at Staal’s knees. Carolina defenseman Jay Harrison jumped in to defend Staal and picked up a two-minute minor for roughing with Rybin. Prior to the ensuing faceoff, Tim Gleason dropped the gloves with Alexei Petrov and picked up a five-minute major and a game misconduct.

Staal had one of those “uh-oh” moments when Rybin dove at his knees.

“I’m fine taking a hit and I can take a hit. I’m a big guy,” Staal told NHL.com. “But, when you get a small guy who is planted and I am coming with speed, I have him beat and he takes a lunge at my knees, there’s a chance of … you never know. You can tear an ACL or MCL. I wasn’t very happy with that play and I let him know that. And, that was pretty much the end of me for the night.”

He didn’t want it to be.

“I wanted to play. I wanted to go back on the ice badly,” Staal said. “I wanted to score a few and fist pump down the ice, but it’s not my decision sometimes.”

In hindsight, Staal understood the decision Maurice had to make.

“There were some lower hits, some questionable plays that I didn’t like personally and I don’t think our management, coaches or the rest of our guys liked much either,” he said. “But, I think they had a lot riding on the game and that’s sometimes the way it goes.”

Maurice was clearly ticked at how the SKA players treated his biggest star, but really how the home team treated the game as a whole.

The ‘Canes were whistled for 12 penalties, including three majors and a game misconduct, yet Maurice praised their discipline because he knows by the way things were going, the game could have gotten completely out of control and really turned into a filth fest.

“I thought we played a very disciplined game,” Maurice said. “It could have gotten to 30 or 40 (penalties) and I would have been fine with that.”

As mad as Maurice was, Staal’s teammates showed similar displeasure. They came to their captain’s defense on multiple occasions, which Erik Cole believes could be the best thing to come out of Monday’s game.

“Tonight was one of those games where you saw a lot of guys sticking up for one another, team unity,” Cole told NHL.com. “That’s good to see because we’re going to need that.”

Maurice loved what Gleason did in defense of Staal.

“You can argue if you like fighting or not, but when you’ve got guys coming awful close to players knees with no repercussions, if you don’t sort it out that way then there is going to be a lot of stick work and a lot of garbage,” Maurice said.

Cole wasn’t sure if Staal was a target, “but he’s our best player.” He also agreed with Maurice’s decision to keep Staal off the ice after things got real chippy in the second period.

“The important day for us is Thursday, not tonight,” Cole said. “Our games start counting on Thursday.”