A Carolina Hurricanes blog with occasional news about the rest of the NHL.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

On Patrick Eaves

One of the parts in the four-player swap the other day, the one that I like the most, is Patrick Eaves.

In Eaves' short NHL career, he has tallied 71 (38/33) points in 157 games. Not too bad for a 23-year old kid playing in the shadows of Daniel Alfredsson, Jason Spezza and Dany Heatley.

Carolina fans might not remember it, but Eaves scored his first NHL goal in dramatic fashion against the Hurricanes. The Canes will hope that he scores many for them.

Eaves has something in common with Erik Cole. Both players have suffered a fracture of the C-5 vertebra. Cole's came on March 5, 2006 when he was boarded by Penguins defenseman Brooks Orpik. Eaves' happened on December 7, 2002. He was accidentally closelined by a teammate's stick and missed 20 games of his freshman season at Boston College.

Eaves was a 2005 Hobey Baker award finalist, and was the Hockey East player of the year that same year.

He is recovering from a shoulder injury, and skated in practice today. He is not expected to make his Hurricanes debut until at least next week.

Eaves will be donning the number 44. The only other Hurricanes to wear that number have been Kent Manderville (1997-1999) and Niklas Nordgren.(05-06). Manderville tallied 29 (10/19) points in 214 games for the Canes while Nordgren registered 6 (4/2) in 43 games.

Mike Commodore will be wearing Eaves' old 44 sweater in Ottawa.

1 comment:

Dave said...

Watched Commodore in that #44 jersey turn the puck over in his defensive zone and it directly lead to NJ's 2nd goal on the Sens last night.

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