Canes win in shootout

This is the 100th post!

The Hurricanes topped Florida on Thursday night, thanks to a shootout marker by Matt Cullen. Although Cullen "lacks a scorer's touch", he has thus far established himself as a very good go-to guy on the shootout.

In the second period, we got a short-handed goal from Niklas Nordgren, who is one of the "on the bubble" guys. He's one of a few guys who will be competing for the last roster spot, a decision that will probably be made tomorrow night following our pre-season finale at Tampa. The final cut,which will get us down to the maximum of 23 players, will be either Nordgren or Chad LaRose. There is quite a bit of speculation that Nordgren will be kept on the Carolina roster even though LaRose may be the "better" choice for the final spot. It's very doubtful that Nordgren will play at Lowell if we elect to keep LaRose. He has a provision in his contract allowing him to return to Sweden if things don't work out. So there's that. Both players have been impressive this preseason, but Nordgren only has one point to show for it. The coaches have said that he gets better every day and has looked very impressive on the ice, making a strong case for himself.

From the looks of the Superstats, Josef Vasicek did not play. I didn't hear anything about an injury, so I'll assume that he was a healthy scratch.

One bit of great news is that we finally got Ray Whitney on the ice. He logged just over 16 minutes of ice time, but was unable to take any shots on goal. Everything that I've read indicates that he's feeling great and looking great.

Tonight the Canes will finish their preseason in Tampa. They will return home for a final batch of practices (and roster cuts), then they will go right back to Tampa to open the regular season on Wednesday.