ST. PAUL Youth Darnell Nurse Jersey , Minn. (AP)his least productive NHL season since he was a teenage rookie with Carolina when Minnesota took a flier on him two summers ago to add some depth at center.The three-year contract was modest for a player with Staal’s ability and accomplishments. The expectations were, too. Three consecutive seasons of decline in points per game, after all, don’t provide a hint that the scoring touch or passing knack is primed for resurgence.Bruce Boudreau could see the rebound potential, though. His first day of training camp with the Wild happened to be Staal’s practice debut with his new club, and a strong impression was made on the new head coach.”I said, `You know what? Everybody was wrong,”’ Boudreau said. ”Because he did the skate test on the very first day, and he blew everybody out of the water. So I said to the staff, `He should be able to play for us.”’Staal has done much more for the Wild than simply prove he can keep up and stabilize a key position with some savviness and leadership. Nobody on the team has scored more since he arrived, and with 40 goals this season he’s tied for sixth in the league through Monday’s games.”I never thought a specific number was a goal. I don’t ever usually think like that,” Staal said. ”Once you start a season, it can go a lot of different ways, but once the puck starts hitting the back of the net and you’re gaining confidence that way, you want to hold on to it as long as you can and accumulate as much as you can to help your team win.”Staal became just the second player in NHL history Kailer Yamamoto Jersey , joining Gordie Howe, to record a 40-goal season at least nine years apart with none in between. Slumps can factor into that, but so does dedication.”Look, he’s won a Stanley Cup. He’s won an Olympic medal. He’s got all the money that he’s ever going to need,” Boudreau said. ”But when he came here he wanted to prove to the world that he’s still a really good player, and to me he has.”The lanky 33-year-old with the left-handed shot has been a big reason why the Wild, despite some rough patches of the schedule and significant injury absences by several of their best skaters, have clinched a spot in the playoffs for the sixth straight season.”You want that, especially as a player who’s in the second half of his career. You want to make sure you’re in a spot to try to win again, and coming here I felt gave me that chance,” said Staal, the second overall pick in the 2003 draft who won the Stanley Cup in 2006 at age 21 but only returned to the playoffs once more with the Hurricanes. ”We’ve still got some work to do here, but hopefully we can finish strong.”Staal only has one goal-less stretch on his ledger longer than four games in a row, when he played six consecutive contests without scoring from Jan. 9-22. He still contributed four assists over that span. Not coincidentally, the Wild have only one losing streak larger than two. They dropped three in a row from Nov. 4-8.”He’s a guy we’ve definitely looked to to help lead us Womens Kris Russell Jersey ,” said left wing Jason Zucker, one of the many linemates Staal has saddled up to this season – without, Boudreau said beamingly, a single complaint.Durability has been one crucial component of his value, of course. Staal has yet to miss a game since signing the $10.5 million deal on July 1, 2016. The emotional steadiness he has contributed can’t be overlooked, either.”He’s been through the best of teams. He’s been through the worst of teams. He’s been the leader on all of these teams,” Boudreau said. ”He’s had to make sure he’s the steady one, because if he gets too high, maybe the rest of the group gets too high. If he was one to get too low, maybe everybody else would follow his lead.”The Wild actually left Staal exposed in the expansion draft, banking on his age being less attractive to the Vegas Golden Knights. His salary cap hit is only the ninth-highest on the roster.”If he was playing in Toronto, he’d be up for the MVP,” Boudreau said.Settling in Minnesota was more than satisfying for Staal, with the perennial postseason opportunities and the relative proximity to his hometown of Thunder Bay Leon Draisaitl Jersey , Manitoba, about a six-hour drive away. He and his wife, Tanya, have been able to raise sons Parker, Levi and Finley, in a similar northern culture and climate that he was raised in, delighting in seeing the boys at 8, 6 and 3 years old take to the local hockey rinks or eagerly hop on their sleds after the latest snowfall.”All that stuff I grew up doing and loving, and now I’m kind of living it back through them,” Staal said. ”It’s definitely made it a ton of fun.”— Puck and player tracking is coming to the NHL next season. A sneak preview is coming up this weekend, too.Commissioner Gary Bettman announced the long-expected news Friday during All-Star Weekend in San Jose, California, calling it a “breakthrough that is years in the making.” The league is partnering with German company Jogmo World Corp. to put microchips on player jerseys and inside game pucks. Real-time data will be gathered by antennas in all 31 NHL arenas.The NHL joins the NFL as the two major North American professional sports leagues with wearable tracking technology. The NBA and Major League Baseball use sophisticated systems that can include radar and cameras.“Being on the forefront of innovation is good for our game and most especially for our fans,” Bettman said. “With the speed and complexity of hockey, it makes for an unparalleled on-ice product http://www.officialhockeypanthersshop.com/authentic-adidas-roberto-luongo-jersey , but at the same time it also presents an incredible challenge. So as a league we have made significant investment to create new technology that quite literally did not exist.”Long after the glowing puck of FoxTrax a generation ago, the NHL began its work on puck and player tracking in earnest in 2013. Tests of various systems were done at All-Star games, the 2016 World Cup of Hockey and two regular-season games earlier this month in Las Vegas.While the glowing puck isn’t coming back, this All-Star Weekend is another test. NBC Sports in the United States and Rogers Sportsnet in Canada will be showcasing tracking data with NBC featuring it as part of a digital-only broadcast of the 3-on-3 tournament Saturday night.Players have agreed to the tracking, but the NHL is not yet committing to a firm start date because officials say testing is ongoing with the potential for changes after feedback from players, teams and broadcasters. But the league is confident in the accuracy of the radio frequency-based system and its application for 1,271 regular-season games and the playoffs.“This will continue to evolve and be monitored and tested and perfected over the course of the rest of this season and parts of next season,” NHL chief revenue officer Keith Wachtel said. “But this is our opportunity to say that we are far enough along where the commissioner is comfortable with the data and our broadcasters are comfortable and the NHLPA is comfortable that we can go ahead and unleash this, which we’re obviously excited about.”The six-year effort included what NHL senior vice president of business development David Lehanski called “unforeseen” challenges, primarily with how to make the puck.“A lot of testing (was done) on the performance of the puck both with regard to its durability but also its playability,” Lehanski said. “The puck itself is really something unlike anything else … any other sport has really had to contend with.”Researchers and engineers at the Fraunhofer Institute and Jogmo believe they have reached to the point where players don’t notice the microchips on their shoulder pads and can’t tell the difference between the new “smart puck” and the frozen rubber that has been part of hockey for more than a century.“It’s an active puck, so it needs to be activated before it goes on the ice and deactivated after that,” Jogmo founder and CEO Martin Bachmayer said. “It’s kind of a different handling for the officials and for the people in the box. … That’s the kind of stuff we try to figure out in the next couple of months before the season starts: how to really make this right.”