Canes hope to be healthier heading down the homestretch.

Last season, the Hurricanes were beset with injuries during the regular season to the tune of something like 260 man games lost. They were lucky to be healthy during the playoffs, though. At least healthier than any of the teams they faced.
Montréal dealt with the loss of their captain, Saku Koivu when he was hit in the eye by Justin Williams' errant stick.
New Jersey was healthy, but wasn't up for the challenge
Buffalo had four defenseman out for the majority of the series and lost a forward during the series.
Edmonton lost their clear-cut #1 goaltender Dwayne Rolison in game one.

Sure, Carolina was playing without Erik Cole, but they had been doing so since March. During the playoffs, they had the luxury of remaining injury-free. Doug Weight was hurt in game 5 of the SCF, but that was it.

Carolina will hope that this season will be like last in many ways. Obviously, they'd like to win the Cup again. They are already looking like last year's squad in that they haven't lost a game when leading after two.

The other way they want to repeat last season is with the injuries. Obviously, you'd like to be like Tampa and only lose something like 40 man-games to injury, but that isn't realistic for anyone.

This season, Carolina has had a ton of man-games lost. Largely due to surgeries to Frantisek Kaberle and Cory Stillman. Even aside from those, though, there have been a ton of other man-games lost. The Canes are okay with that as long as they continue to stay inside the playoff bubble. The injury gods couldn't possibly smite them this hard in the regular season and the playoffs. Assuming that's true, the Canes will be happy to lose man-games now and play healthy later.

Give or take a few games, Carolina has lost 174 man-games to injury this season.
Presently, defensemen Frantisek Kaberle (shoulder), Bret Hedican (finger) and Tim Gleason (foot) are out of the lineup and on the IR.

Here's a laundry list of the players with their injuries and the duration of said injury.

David Tanabe 13 games total









Nic Wallin 7 games total (new injury 01.18.07 versus WAS)









Glen Wesley 8 games total









Rod Brind'Amour 4 games total








Andrew Ladd 13 games total








Trevor Letowski 9 games total








Cory Stillman 32 games total









Keith Aucoin 5 games total








Tim Gleason 22 games











Bret Hedican 12 games









Frantisek Kaberle 49 games. Has not played yet.