Frank Kaberle Waived

Now the season is getting interesting. Several sources have reported that Frank Kaberle is in the process of waivers. Franky has a huge chunk o' change at $2.2 million for his mediocre efforts. I really doubt a team will be willing to pay that price. If no team picks him up we have the option to assign him to Albany. Of course the seasonal flu bug is going around, so we may have to call up several players. Whatever decisions JR makes from now on could effect if we make the play-offs. Jim Rutherford must of had his reasons for clearing 2.2 mil. off the cap. Will the crystal ball foresee some sort of trade or free agency pick-up? 

Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays to all of our readers!

Week in Review

I have not been blogging in a while, but let me catch you guys up on what happened this past week. In a 2-1 OT win over Florida, we got back a newly recharged Frank Kaberle. Joe Corvo, one of our best players as of late, had a goal and assist and Rod Brind'Amour notched his 700th career assist. Our power play finally looked as if it is doing some as we scored in the first period off a Justin Williams shot. It was 1-0 until late in the third when ex-cane Cory Stillman intercepted one of Williams's passes and scored on Ward. Joe Corvo pulled one of the coolest moves I have ever seen him do on our 37th shot, and he knocked in the puck backhand. Both Tim Gleason and Brandon Sutter got in fights. Brandon Sutter's fight was his first in the NHL and Tim Gleason pummeled his guy. Seidenberg deserved the 32+ minutes of ice time he got as he blocked 5 shots. 

On Saturday, we lost 4-2 against the best team in the East. They gave us our first loss in 6 games but we put up a fight keeping the game within one goal for a long time. We got our first goal from Joni Pitkanen as he received a nice pass from Rod Brind'Amour. Boston tied it about halfway through the game when Marc Savard did some nice moves and scored. Dennis Seidenberg laid a big hit on Patrice Bergeron and he has a concussion. After, David Krejci and Shawn Thornton added on to the score, Ray Whitney had a nice goal. We tried hard for the extra goal, but they got an empty netter. Ward looked sharp in net except on the Thornton goal. I also noticed Pitkanen played decently the entire game. According to LSB, Dan LaCouture told Jeff Daniels he is staying in Albany. 

In a 3-2 Overtime win vs. Montreal, the Ruutu-Staal-Samsonov line dominated the game with 7 total points. Each had a goal and during their average 19:21 of ice time they all made nice plays. Neither team completely dominated the game, but there was a lot of nice plays and big hits. Roman Hamrlik and Matt D'Agostini each had a goal for Montreal. Chad LaRose got more playing time but we saw less of Brandon Sutter and Patrick Eaves. Who said Maurice is that bad at 4-2-3 since he has gotten here? 

LaCouture to KHL

The Russians are taking all of our hockey players. First Matt Murley, now Dan LaCouture. The great TSN reports:

"Carolina Hurricanes forward Dan LaCouture is believed to have left the team for Russia, however, the Hurricanes remain unclear as to which Kontinental Hockey League team LaCouture is attempting to join.

The Hurricanes intend on suspending LaCouture, who was signed as a free agent in October, if he doesn’t have an immediate change of heart.

If LaCouture walks away from his contract with the Hurricanes this will fuel the ongoing feud between the KHL and the National Hockey League as, once again, the Kontinental Hockey League would have apparently abandoned its policy of respecting NHL contracts."

I really liked watching LaCouture play.  He had two goals in the eleven games he played for us. I think he deserved a better chance to play than he actually got and he must of felt like he was only going to play in the minors. This is probably the reason for him to leave for Russia. Plus, every sportsperson in Russia gets monster salaries. LaCouturov (My new nickname for him), as previously mentioned, will be the second player to leave the Canes this year as Matt Murley is currently playing for Amur. LaCouturov, is accustomed to playing as he has played in 43 games for the Swiss league. If he does play in Russia, I wish this 31 year old luck. 

Kaberle is back, Conboy sent down

Frank Kaberle was taken off Injured Reserve today. By doing this we send Timmy Conboy the agitator, back to Albany. Kaberle has been injured for so much time this season (and pretty much all of his career), I don't know why we still have him.  The unfortunate thing about sending Conboy down, is his willingness to stand up for the team will be gone. I will miss him! Canes Country makes a good point on several interesting subplots here.  

Canes get a sloppy win

We got a sloppy win. When the other team gets 11 penalties, I'd expect a win. It is pretty sad that we had 22 minutes of power play time and we were only leading by one late in the third. Eric Staal had two great goals but was driven head first into the boards in the 2nd period. He was already bobbling his head. Made those bobble heads are like voodoo dolls. Fortunately, he was back on the ice in one or two shifts. Both goalies had a few nice saves and a few easy goals. It was a sloppy win, but a win.

Roddy: Either step up your game or retire

Is he actually paying attention to the game?

In the last 3 seasons Rod Brind'Amour has been +15 and he has won two Selke trophies, for best defensive forward. In 30 games this season Roddy is -21 (Yes, you read right) and his defense looks 10 times worse. How do you go from one of the best in the league to the WORST in the league. Dmitri Kalinin, The next lowest +/-  in the league, is at -16 and Ray Whitney the next lowest on the Canes is at -7. Rod is our captain and he uses a lot of our salary cap up. If something does not change, we may need to move him or force him to retire. Please leave your  comments on what we should do with him.

Rangers 3, Canes 2

As expected the Carolina Hurricanes lost. It was a lot closer than I thought going to a 5th round of shootouts proved to much for the Canes. We definitely had our chances and the Rangers definitely had theirs. We still didn't score on the power play but we looked better. The goaltending was a work of art and that made the game much more nerve-racking. A few thing I noticed:

• Thank god Cam Ward is back. He played SO much better than Michael Leighton (especially on the shootout) 

• Joe Corvo is the king of Penalty Killing. He is undeniably our last line of defense.

• Justin Williams, played without question his best game this season. His 15:34 of game time allowed him to make nice passes and creative plays. 

• Is Chris Drury a figure skater also. On that game winning shootout goal he skated the entire way on one foot. Nice shot, by the way.
  
• Did we lose our away jerseys? Why are we wearing our alternate jerseys to away games?

Cam Ward is back

TSN has announced that the Carolina Hurricanes have activated Cam Ward from injured reserve. This is sort of a thank god moment because at least he won't flop on a shootout (See highlights below).  This means we have returned Justin Peters to Albany. I would have loved to see Peters play (especially after Philly caught up yesterday) but we stayed with Michael Leighton. 

Uhh.. Yeah...

OK. There is only one thing that sums up this game. WTF? I mean seriously how do you blow a 5-1 lead? Was it because Mo-ron did not pull Leighton? Was it because our defense looked like they were high (Maybe because we were actually winning)? Who really knows? When you are completely dominating a game you keep playing hard not try and keep them from scoring. It is just ridiculous. For the first two periods we were stellar after that, not so much. That #12 finally showed up, I don't remember his name but he wasn't playing that bad. We passed and did almost everything right until the third period. When we lost the Casey Borer fight (I did not know he was a fighter) I was becoming mad. When Scott Hartnell got a hat trick, all it did was make me furious. Below the highlights are my reactions to each goal.

1-0: "WHOA! Staal did something productive! I wish I got my Canes Country Points though." 

2-0: "Matt Cullen? I put him as number one to be traded."

2-1:"Ahh! Jeff Carter stop being so good. Let someone else score. At least we are still winning. Oh it was Hartnell. OK."

3-1:"SERGEI SAMSONOV! What a goal! Right off the face-off too."

4-1:"This game is looking to be a blowout. If we keep scoring like this, I should have a fun blog post tomorrow" 

5-1:"Staal showed up to play tonight. That's a first."

5-2:"@#$%. Hartnell. Again? Come on!"

5-3:"What the @#$%. Hartnell got a @#$%in Hat trick! Oh @#$%!"

5-4:"NO! Why? They are gonna catch up! Why the @#$% have we not pulled Leighton?"

5-5:"Really, they just scored? Are you kidding? Hello Mo-Ron call your @#$%in timeout or something. We cannot go to a shootout or we are dead."

6-5:"Gaaah! You @#$%in @#$%head. What kind of bull@#$% was that? Michael Leighton stop trying to do the worm. Damit. 

Canes recall Bryan Rodney

Apparently Seids is not doing great. The Carolina Hurricanes announced they have recalled Bryan Rodney. Rodney did very well in training camp, outlasting Casey Borer and Brett Carson. Bubba at Canes Country, made an interesting point. He pointed out that Pitkanen and Corvo have 670 combined games of NHL experience while the other 4 defenseman called up have a total of 35 games played. I hope we win! 

Trade Bait 101

Maybe you want to know who is worth trading. I have decided to make a list of 5 players you could get some one decent in exchange for. It was a pretty tough decision but hope you enjoy it. 

5. Brandon Sutter  (1G, 3A, 4p) In his first 20 NHL games he has looked phenomenal. He does not get huge amounts of Ice time but he does play well on Special Teams. He is worth trading because he may take some time to reach his full potential as he only has 4 points. His face-off skills are not too hot as he his only 39.4% off the draw. He has the ability to make plays he just seems too lanky at times. If he could improve his 3.1 scoring percentage, he would be a much better player and a good player for a team in the future.

4. Tuomo Ruutu (9G, 6A, 15P) He is probably one of the best players we have right now, but because he is so good we could get a lot in return. With 69 hits he is 20th on the list. He will throw his body around, stick up for his teammates, and he can score. He is averaging a point every 30:12 of ice time and his scoring percentage is 17.6. His stats are so good we could get several great players because he is in such high demand. When he was with Chicago he seemed to have some injury issues with his back and ankle. That may just be because he was with a bad organization like the Blackhawks. He is a Restricted Free Agent at the end of the year, the way he is playing could mean either a huge salary increase (He is currently paid $2.25 million) or he will leave for another team. He would be hard to lose but if we got some great players in return it wouldn't be that bad.   

3. Chad LaRose (7G, 2A, 9P) He is not really a bad player for any team. With an average of 13:02 of ice time per game he has about one point every 3 games. For a fourth line player this is not that bad. Rosey does seem a little inconsistent when he is moved up to the third line, though. He works really hard when he gets the chance and probably deserves more than he is paid. His $875,000 salary expires after this season and he will want more. "The Chuck Norris of Hockey" is a team morale booster and crowd morale booster because of the constant energy he has. (That would be greatly missed). I doubt we could get much in return but some teams may be looking for this kind of player.  

2. Cam Ward (8W, 7L, 2OTL) There is not much I could say about Wardo other than the fact that is VERY, VERY inconsistent. His goals against average is a mediocre 2.68 and his save percentage is ironically the same number I would call when he is having a bad night, .911. For his $2.5 million salary, that is not up to par. Sometimes he seems as if he is not concentrating about the game (Have you ever noticed, since he got married he has been much more inconsistent). He is a good guy but I think it is time for him to be moved on so we can get a goalie that can play at least a half-a$$ game.   

1. Matt Cullen (7G, 3A, 10P) Yeah, he was good during our cup run, but he is just not playing well anymore. He used to excel in his creativity and he could always make a play. He also has had to deal with a larger amount of injuries which has slowed down his style of play. If a team is looking to pay the $2.8 million he makes he would be a good third line center. Maybe he can play somewhere where he he can have a bigger role. He is just not needed around here anymore.

Here is 5 players that would fit in well with our team. If you disagree feel free to leave a comment.

5. Niklas Backstrom (Goalie: 14W, 8L, 1OTL). Honestly, we could use either Niklas Backstrom but the Minnesota Wild Goalie would do better for us. He is much more consistent than any goalie we've had since the lockout. With his 2.26 Goals against average and his .925 save percentage he is worth every cent. He has the 4th spot on the GAA list and the 3rd spot on the save percentage list for all goalies who have played 15 games or more. He performs great under pressure and he relies almost too much on technique and positioning. He is coming off a hot streak with a 1.01 GAA and .962 save percentage in the last two games. Worth trading Ward and a few prospects or draft picks. Watch him here.

4. Devin Setoguchi (13G, 17A, 30P) This player would add the speed and goal-scoring instincts we lost in Erik Cole. He is just coming into his prime at age 21 and looks to be an excellent player for years too come. He can be used whenever, wherever you want. This is a skill hardly any of our players have. According to Sportsnet he has the potential to be a top-six forward. He score a point every 14:27 of ice time and at $850,000 he is a steal. He has scored 16 points in his last 11 games played. I would love too see this guy on our team as it would definitely increase our game speed. Worth trading Ruutu with maybe a draft pick in return. Watch him here. Yes that's John Forslund.

3. Mikael Samuelsson (5G, 16A, 21P) The Canes need some leadership. At age 31, Samuelsson would provide the leadership and passing abilities to maximize this teams effort in winning. He plays great in all three zones and would compliment Brind'Amour's Selke trophy winning style of play. He does not have the size some players possess, but he can make the play. His injury issues could be a problem, but his 2-way style of play is always interesting to watch. Maybe worth trading Cullen. Watch him here.

2. Milan Lucic (8G, 10A, 18P) Well you cant say he doesn't hit hard. With 113 Hits, he leads the league. His 220 pound 6'4" frame allows him to lay bone crushing hits. He stands up for his teammates and also has a little scoring touch. At age 20, and with only a $585,000 salary he looks to be a future all-star. His contract does not expire until 2010 which gives us a little breathing room. There is not much more I can say, he has 4 power play points, he is +12 and he has a point about every 24 minutes of ice time. If I were Jim Rutherford, I would definitely try and get this guy. I don't what to trade for this guy but damn we need him. TKO!

1. Alex Semin (13G, 15A, 28P) The other Alex for Washington. He seems to have the same level of skills for half the money. In only 17 games he had 28 points. He has 6 power play points, he has scored on 25.5% of his shots, and he scores every 11:35 of ice time. He does all this at age 24. He can score many goals and he has the offensive wizardry to make you say "Did that just happen". His skills can make you wince they are so good. Those 7 points in 2 games against us. Yeah you know what I'm talking about. He is one hell of a player, he would fit in great with almost any line, and and he would make us more of a division powerhouse over Washington. I'd trade Staal and maybe I could get someone else in return. Maybe Brashear :)

Check this out.

As long as we don't trade for Joe Sakic. Or as long as we don't trade for a guy that spreads his legs when he sees other guys. (That could be a problem)

Role Model down the road

A role model for the Canes just appeared about 175 miles southwest of Raleigh. Just recently the Arizona Republic reported the Cats shipped off one of their top players, in Jason Richardson for Boris Diaw, Raja Bell, and Sean Singletary. The Bobcats also sent off Jared Dudley and a 2nd round draft pick. If the Canes noticed what our local neighbors can do, maybe they can make a transaction. That would be interesting. 

If you are looking for a good read...

Check out the story "Improved Drafting Makes Teams Better" at Canes Country. Cory does a great job keeping up with our prospects and I enjoy reading his articles. He follows almost everyone we have drafted since we've been in North Carolina and he explains how are prospect system is filling up (FINALLY). 

Sorry, things have been a little dry around here lately but I should have a post up soon. 

I am actually very happy today

Well Look at that Guess who is in the Orange Bowl. My Virginia Tech Hokies won the ACC and received the chance to play in the Orange Bowl. To the left represents our favorite snack, to the right, all you teams that thought you were good (uh...Carolina) have fun in the Meineke Car Care Bowl or whatever you are in. We'll see who really is a repetitive ACC champion.   

Hey we scored first

Well we scored first and we won. You know what I want to say to that. OMG! With a final tally of 3-1 the Canes got a long awaited win and the first win under coach Paul Maurice. Ray Whitney had 2 goals and he played spectacular. Even call-up Brett Carson seemed to know what to do out there. Leighton played well too saving 38 shots and making a nice on Ovechkin when he had a penalty shot with 1.2 seconds left in the first.

Canes Recall Brett Carson

The Carolina Hurricanes have recalled Brett Carson to replace the injured Nic Wallin. He has 53 points in 163 Career games for the Albany River Rats. He is a great player and should be fun to watch. He joins fellow River Rats Borer and Conboy, Corvo, Pitkanen and Babchuk.

Well at least we looked good

Finally, this team had a sign of life. Jeff Carter, who seems to be the NHL's next superstar with 19 goals, struck in an OT winner with 1:26 left. The defense looked extremely good, forcing turnovers in the neutral zone and limiting their turnovers. Borer and Conboy had decent opening games. Pitkanen and Babchuk, probably the strangest line I've heard played 29 and 26 minutes respectively.  Michael Leighton looked  better than he did in the Pittsburgh game stopping 29 of his 31 shots against. My man, Wade B got in a little skirmish with Riley Cote. 

Now we talk, about Special Teams. Oh God! We suck at special teams. Our team looked completely scatter-brained when it comes to Power Plays, we hardly got a shot in a few of them. It was completely ridiculous. At least our penalty kill looked decent.

Back on the injury front, Wallin seems to have a lower body injury as he left in the third period due to a big hit. Why are we always the team that gets hurt. 

Laviolette says Goodbye, We have dug ourselves in a hole

Recently on 850 the Buzz, Peter Laviolette thanked the fans and community in his exit statement. It was really crushing because he was a great coach. After all he did lead us to a Stanley Cup in 2006. It was a very classy move by a very classy guy. If you would like to hear it go here. 

But look who we are stuck with now, Paul freakin Maurice, who owns both the tile of winningest coach in franchise history and losingest coach in franchise history. Sure, you can tell me he is a nice guy, but come on What the hell were you thinking JR? I still completely resent this move and hate thinking about it. This is the most WTF? moment we have ever done. I'm sorry but I don't want to crawl up and die in a hole when we only have 20 wins. 

Borer and Conboy Recalled

So we have finally made a good decision. The Carolina Hurricanes have recently recalled Casey Borer and Tim Conboy from Albany.  This should breathe new life into the Canes because we have a roster change up. Turnover master Joe Melichar and likable, but expendible Pat Dwyer were sent down. Melichar does not have to clear waivers because he already had a while back. 

With this addition we have added more skill and toughness. Conboy, The hard-nosed, always wants to fight fan favorite, has come to do what he does best. FIGHT! He really came into replace Dwyer, whose penalty killing skills were no longer needed. 

Borer, a personal favorite, had 3 points in his 11 NHL games last year. He comes into replace the major turnover-prone Melichar. Now if we could just do something with Babchuk.

The familiar stench of a loss

I am truly sick of this. Every freakin game we play is a loss. I don't care if its Maurice's first game. This is just embarassing. We have now given up the first goal in 11 straight games. If this team can only play 10 minutes of effort why can't we pay 1/6 of the price for tickets. There are a few players that try really hard (Ruutu, Larose, Bayda, Sutter, Walker) and there are a few that don't so much (EAVES). Rutherford needs to look in the mirror to see the problem because he created it. 

This team needs a major change, with several losses in a row, Rod Brind'Amour is at a freakin -20 (There are some serious leadership problems here), many turnovers (Melichar that's you) that led to goals, the list goes on and on. Yes it wasn't all bad (finally a power play goal and outshooting the other team but we need to convert those shots) but our team is still bad. Right now this is looking like a pretty ugly season.

Canes play Pens tonight

This should be an interesting game as it is Justin Williams first game back and Paul Maurice's first game back as head coach. Williams, should give a burst to this team as he was one of our better scorers since we have been there. Maurice, returns 5 years later as the coach meant to replace Laviolette, who replaced him. I always love watching the Staal wars. Thanks to Carolina on Ice for the picture. The game will be televised on FSN Carolinas. I can't wait to hopefully see a win.

Tying up loose ends

Carolina on Ice reports that John Grahame was kicked out of the KHL. He seems too have gotten too drunk to continue to work. He hadn't been playing well anyways. So those few Johnny Grahame fans out there, things don't look too good for crackers. Here.

Canes Country reports that with the Return of Captain Mo, we now have morning skates again. here. Cory, also runs a great review of defense and goalies. here. Cory follows up with a story about which Hurricanes will stay and go here.

If you'd like to see part of the press conderence. Lords Stanleys Blog has part of it. here. I definatley recommend these blogs.

What do you think of the coaching change?

Well with many different opinions arising on the coaching change I'd love to know what you think. I know there are not many readers if any, but I challenge those of you who do read my blog.

Laviolette is Canned, Maurice named new head coach

TSN announced a new coaching change this morning. I'll just sum it up short. Maurice is back, back again, Maurice is back, Maurice is back, Maurice is back. After having a struggling start of 12-11-2, the Canes have replaced long-time coach with a coach that served an even longer term here. GM Jim Rutherford obviously did not want to miss the play-offs for a third straight season. Puck Daddy makes a good point by saying our offense has dropped from averaging about 3 goals a game last season to about 2.5 goals a game this season. One thing he also pointed out was Eric Staal only has two more points than Dennis Seidenberg.  “It wasn’t about [the players having] confidence in the coach or the system,” Said Rutherford “It was confidence in themselves.” 

With the hiring of Maurice, we have lost a good coach in Peter Laviolette. Its actually really strange this happened because Laviolette was hired to replace the fired Maurice. So far JR has been extremely criticized for this hiring but I don't think it is too bad. I criticize Rutherford myself because hiring Captain Mo may be the most freakin' torture the fans have ever felt or it may turn out to be one of the greatest moves our franchise has ever done. Maurice did after all seem to last here for 8 years and he led us to a Stanley Cup final appearance. Joining him on the bench will be the hall-of-famer Ron Francis. It is not sure how long these too will be in Carolina because currently they only have deals until the end of the season. Please leave your comments.

Decided to start a blog

So here it begins, the road to writing a successful blog. Now here is my first step. On this blog you will find everything you want to know about the Carolina Hurricanes and sometimes a few other local sports teams. I have written a Hurricanes blog before but now I plan on keeping it up. So when you are extra bored and looking for some canes news just stop on by.