red and black hockey

RBH is moving

2008-09-17T20:10:00.003-04:00

Here's the "major change" that I've been hinting at lately.

I've been asked by the great Paul Kukla to join the Kukla Empire.

From now on, I'll be publishing stuff over there at the following address:

kuklaskorner.com/index.php/rbh/.

Go ahead and make the necessary changes to your browser and feed reader.

We all know how awesome Kuklas Korner was from the get-go. It got even better when it expanded to include Canucks and Beyond and Abel to Yzerman a couple of years ago.

Now I have been asked, along with a small group of elite bloggers, to join the empire. I'm excited about the change, and I hope you will all check out the new digs over there.

For now, this page will remain on-line. I don't know if or when my archives can be migrated to the new KK site.

Anyway, to reiterate, I'm honored and excited to make the transition.

Williams injured

2008-09-17T17:32:00.002-04:00

On Wednesday, the Hurricanes got some horrible news. Justin Williams has torn his right Achilles tendon and will miss four to six months. According to the News and Observer, Williams suffered the injury in an off-ice workout and should miss the majority of the season.

Williams, the first line right winger, missed the final 45 games of last season. 43 of those were due to a blown ACL. Since joining the Hurricanes, Williams has been nearly a point-a-night producer and will be sorely missed, just as he was down the stretch in 2007-08.

This is indeed horrible news. RBH had Williams projected at 73 (36/37) points this season, second most on the team.

Jim Rutherford stressed the fact that although this is terrible, the entire season won’t be lost:

“It’s certainly a setback for us. We were looking forward to Justin having a big year. This doesn’t mean he won’t be a part of it. He can come back for the most important part of it.”

He also stressed that the Hurricanes have some depth and will be able to fill the void. Just not as well.

Patrick Eaves will be handed an excellent chance to earn his mettle. Suddenly, the injury-prone youngster who arrived in a blockbuster trade last February, will be on the team’s top line. RBH had Eaves projected at 32 (16/16) points as a second line right wing. The other good that comes out of this is that Ryan Bayda, who has worked his tail off, will be guaranteed a spot on the big team.

The other thing that arises from this situation is that it almost guarantees Jeff O’Neill a job. After a disastrous year on and off the ice just before the lockout, plus the tragic death of his brother, O’Neill was traded to Toronto, and few people were sad to see him go. Although he didn’t return to his 40-goal form, he started to show promise with the Leafs. He spent last season out of hockey entirely, but continued to skate and work out. This summer, the Hurricanes all-time leading goal scorer (176 goals) was offered a tryout contract. All indicators are that he’s been looking good.

I’ve been hyper-critical of O’Neill in the past. He looked terrible in his final year here, and the DUI (two of them) didn’t help. But I’ve also been able to look at Jeff O’Neill vis-a-vis the summer of 2008 in a completely objective manner. He’s been working hard, and he means business. He’s gotten married and has a kid on the way. That makes a man change quite a bit. This isn’t the old Jeff O’Neill. Before I knew about Williams’ injury, I commented to a friend just today that I would be the first guy to tip my hat to O’Neill if he makes the team. That looks like an inevitability now.

The lines will have to be shuffled, and O’Neill is huge because he can play any forward position. Camp hasn’t even opened yet, but here’s how I imagine opening night:

Ray Whitney / Eric Staal / Patrick Eaves
Sergei Samsonov / Rod Brind’Amour / Scott Walker
Tuomo Ruutu / Matt Cullen / Jeff O’Neill
Chad LaRose / Brandon Sutter / Ryan Bayda

So, Caniacs who still have those dusty old 92 sweaters might want to pull them out of the closet.

Thanks, TWC

2008-09-17T08:42:00.003-04:00

Thanks to a mysterious Time Warner Cable outage, I was completely out of commission all day yesterday. No internets, no cable. Nothing. It felt like 1979 all over again.

Anyway, I was unable to watch the end of that wacky MNF game between the Eagles and Cowboys. I was unable to check how much of a dent Michael Westbrook put into my big deficit. Most importantly, I was unable to comment about ~~two~~ three major things yesterday.

Since I'm on my way out the door for work, I have to boil them down to two sentences each.

Rod Brind'Amour underwent surgery to "clean up" the surgery that he had back in February. He isn't expected to miss any time.

The NHL voided Eric Staal's new contract because of the wording of the no trade clause. That situation was resolved and everything is a-okay.

Most importantly..... my season tickets arrived yesterday. I wasn't able to hug the fedex guy like I usually do because I wasn't there.

There's going to be a major change to this blog coming today. More details in a few hours.

Fantasy Hockey league looking for players

2008-09-15T19:41:00.003-04:00

Last week, I opened a fantasy hockey league, and it filled immediately. Due to a couple of requests, I opened another. That second league still has a few openings.

Click here to join, or you can do it the old fashioned way by going to the Yahoo fantasy hockey page and using the following info to join:

league ID#: 25035
password: zamboni

This league will use an on-line draft which is scheduled for Tuesday September 23 at 7:30pm eastern time. Please join and invite anybody you want.

Also, there's going to be a major change around here within the next few days. I'll keep everyone posted.

Braylon Edwards and Ryan Getzlaf

2008-09-13T12:41:00.004-04:00

While I was preparing my lineups for my two fantasy football teams, I came across the news that Cleveland Browns wide receiver Braylon Edwards was recently pulled over by an Ohio police officer for driving 120mph in a 65mph zone. The responding officer, who was described as "star struck" recognized the star player and let him go without a citation. After the incident was brought to the attention of a ranking officer, Edwards was indeed served with a citation. By Ohio law, even if a person is "let go", a citation can still be issued up to six months later.

According to many reports, including this one, Edwards was cooperative and was not under the influence of anything. He had a passenger who was physically ill and "vomited all over the dashboard" of Edwards' Bentley.

Still, even with the sick passenger and the possibility that there was a medical emergency, Edwards' comments strike me as odd:

It doesn't matter what was happening in the car. It's my personal business. The officer let me go. I'm not the first person to go over the speed limit, I'm sure I'm not the first person to get let go. It is what it is. The situation's been taken care of. It's not a distraction to the team. It's over with.

The boldfaced part sounds almost as if Edwards is pleading the fifth on bribing the officer. Free tickets? A billion dollars?

Back in May, Anaheim Ducks center Ryan Getzlaf was involved in a similar but very different incident. He was issued a citation for going 85mph in a 65mph zone. This report in the Orange County Register tells us that a California Highway Patrol commander tampered with the citation, making it disappear from court records.

In each case, the citation was ultimately issued. In the Edwards case, it was the subordinate officer who screwed up. In the Getzlaf case, it was the ranking official who screwed up. The CHP commander was placed on administrative leave. The Avon Ohio cop was given a stern lecture.

So the point is that these star players were, in some way, given preferential treatment by the law enforcement officers. However, the officers were the ones who ended up being in trouble.

I kinda wish we'd go to the same system that they have in Finland. Traffic citation penalties are based upon the severity of the offense and also on the driver's income. Teemu Selanne was once given a citation for $40,200 when he was involved in a crash. A Nokia executive was once given a $103,000 citation for going 46mph in a 30mph zone. This fine was later reduced to $5,200. It's an interesting concept, and I assume that there is a minimum fine for the not so wealthy folks.

So, if Braylon Edwards knew that he would be fined $200k or so for speeding like that, he wouldn't do it.

Edwards, who was a top receiver in the NFL last season, had a terrible game in week one. He had only 14 yards receiving in a loss to the Steelers. The Aycock Army is hoping that he can return to 2007 form and put the speeding ticket behind him.

Staal locked in for seven years

2008-09-11T18:11:00.006-04:00

On Thursday, the Hurricanes announce what we all knew was coming. Eric Staal signed a contract extension for seven years totaling $57.75M.

When the Hurricanes announced this morning that they would make a "major player announcement" at 2 pm, everybody with a pulse and a clue knew what this meant.

Thanks to a tip from a reader, I know that our illustrious new beat writer -- he of the encyclopedic college basketball knowledge, missed the clue. Yes, Chip Alexander jumped to the conclusion that this "major player announcement" would be that Frantisek Kaberle had been traded. I wasn't around to see it, but the word on the street is that Alexander posted the following on LSB:

The Hurricanes have called a news conference today at 2 p.m. to make a "major player announcement."

Could it involve moving a defenseman? Someone like Frantisek Kaberle, for example? No one is saying, but keep checking back for updates.

I know Mr. Alexander is busy studying the NC State media guide and defending the honour of a convicted felon (who just happens to be the son of NCSU's basketball coach), but I find it impossible to believe that our professional beat writer missed the hint on that. Just when I was starting to back off of my anti-Alexander stance. I'll put it the same way my reader put it. "Out of touch much?".

Before any real damage was done (read: before anyone could call him out), Alexander changed his post to allude to the Eric Staal contract extension.
Of course Mr Alexander has been a professional journalist for 30 years. We bloggers are amateurs, and therefore inferior. We are expected to make mistakes because we are beer guzzling, nacho eating morons.

Anyway, back to business...

Staal has been signed to a seven year deal, averaging $8.25M per season. The new contract starts next season, when he will make $6M and will culminate in 2016, when he will make $9.5M.

This contract is pretty reasonable. Although Staal isn't among the elite of the elite, he's certainly one of the top players in the league. He's certainly the face of the franchise. From a team standpoint, it's perfect. Anything beyond seven years is a major gamble on the part of the team due to insurance reasons. If a player is signed to a deal longer than seven years, only the first seven years are covered from an insurance standpoint, so injuries become a constant source of concern.

This will certainly be a load off the fans. This will certainly be a load off the front office. It will certainly be a load off Staal. Now he can just play the game. The fans won't have to ever hold their collective breath during the summer the way we used to do with Erik Cole and his impossible contract negotiations. It's done. I haven't seen all the particular bits of the contract, but I would assume that there's a NTC in there.

This has been a good week for Hurricanes fans. Camp starts next weekend, so we'll be even happier.

Tim Gleason and the black sweater

2008-09-10T22:32:00.003-04:00

During Wednesday's press conference, the media asked a few questions of the players as they debuted the new alternate black sweater. Tim Gleason stood there and, when it was his time to talk, he said only this:

I'm standing here. You make the move. You make the move. It's your move.... Don't try it, you %@#!.... You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? Then who the hell else are you talking to? I'm the only one here. Who the %@#! do you think you're talking to?

He was next seen shaving his head in the locker room, leaving a thin mohawk.

Canes officially reveal third sweater

2008-09-10T21:10:00.004-04:00

The Hurricanes revealed their third sweaters today, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive.

Black may be a played out color for alternate jerseys in all of sports, and of course my opinion is biased, but I think these look great. Hopefully, the Canesvision folks will resist the temptation to use AC/DC's "Back in Black" as the team takes the ice while wearing the alternates.

As expected, the sweater is primarily black. As expected, the secondary "storm warning" logo is the crest. As expected, the "sightless eye" moves to the shoulders.

There were a couple of things that were slightly unexpected. The storm warning flags along the hem line have remained, but now they're a black background with a silver square in the middle as opposed to the traditional (and nautically correct) black on a field of red. The "sightless eye" is grayscale, almost blending in entirely with the sweater. The player numbers and the C or A will be in red with white outline. The white outline is a really fantastic touch, which will make the numbers jump off the sweater. Almost a "glow in the dark" feel. The player name will be in white.

Here's the gravy... Everything about the third sweater outfit will be black. The pants, the socks, the gloves, even the helmet will be black. As my pal Stephen Patrick Morrissey says, "I wear black on the outside because black is how I feel on the inside, and if I seem a little strange, that's because I am." Check out the specs in this PDF file.

The dates for which the third sweaters were announced today, and are as follows:
October 13 v Detroit
November 2 v Toronto
November 16 v Tampa
November 26 v Philadelphia
December 7 v Washington
December 27 v Boston
January 2 v St. Louis
January 15 v Toronto
February 14 v Columbus
February 22 v Colorado
February 26 v Boston
March 9 v NY Rangers
March 21 v Washington
April 4 v Pittsburgh
April 7 v NY Islanders

According to the official team page, the sweaters will be available for sale at the Caniac Carnival on Sunday September 21. The release indicates that the pricing will be in line with the pricing of the normal sweaters: $300 for authentic and $115 for "premier". Customizing makes it more. I'm definitely getting one. Even with my STH discount, the authentic is a little rich for my blood. I'd rather by a "premier" (replica) AND a new digital camera.

I highly recommend a visit to the photo gallery of the event.

More on this in a bit

Staal contract extension in the works

2008-09-09T22:05:00.004-04:00

Today, our new beat writer with the N&O Chip Alexander tells us that Eric Staal could sign a contract extension sometime in the next week or so. According to his story, Staal might get a Crosby-type contract.

(Hurricanes GM Jim) Rutherford would not disclose the financial figures being discussed, but it is believed Staal could receive a seven- or eight-year contract that will pay him between $7 million and $10 million a year.

This is not something that Jim Rutherford does. Players don't get contract extensions until a few weeks before they become free agents. Players certainly don't negotiate contract extensions during the course of a season. Since Eric Staal is so important to this team, it will be imperative to go ahead and get this done now, before his "contract year" even begins.

As super-bionic as Rod Brind'Amour is, he won't be around forever. Including the upcoming season, Brindy has three years remaining on his contract. By the end of it, he'll be 41. Eric Staal will still only be 26, and certainly ready to assume the captaincy.

I've been on record as being against long-term contracts. I've always thought that a five-year deal is a very long commitment. These DiPietro and Lecavalier deals are a bit beyond comprehension, even for a supernova like Vinny. However, what I really like is that these deals (and a potential eight-year deal for Staal) puts a player in a sweater for life. I think that's what fans want. They don't want to have to worry if their team will be able to (afford to) re-sign their star. They really don't want to see their star go be a star somewhere else. Of course these long contracts come with standard NTCs.

Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I think that people like it that Joe Sakic has always been a Nordique/Av. People like that Saku Koivu is the eternal Hab. Nobody likes to see a superstar change sweaters. Certainly, nobody liked to see Joe Montana wearing a Kansas City Chiefs uniform, jumping around like a ..... Nobody liked seeing Ty Cobb playing for the Philadelphia As. It's not right.

Alexander Ovechkin is and will always be a Capital. That's the way it should be. Sidney Crosby is and will always be a Penguin. That's the way it should be.
Rick DiPietro? To be honest, nobody cares.
Jarome Iginla should be a Flame for life.

You see what I'm saying. Now, I don't mean to suggest that Staal is as good as Crosby or Ovechkin or Iggy or Ty Cobb or Joe Montana. There's no doubt that he's very good, though, and that he's the player that the Hurricanes and the Caniacs need to see in the red and black for the duration of his career. If it means he has to sign longer contracts, so be it.

This may or may not be a distraction for the next "eight to ten days". We'll know soon enough. For now, we're looking forward to tomorrow's presser. I won't be there, and I can't be anywhere near an internet connection, but I'll eagerly be checking my cell phone for pix messages. Hint, hint.

Second fantasy hockey league opened!

2008-09-09T19:48:00.004-04:00

Due to the first 2008 league filling up extremely quickly, I was thinking about opening a second league. I've had more than one request for a second league, so I've set it up. The other option was to re-open registration for the first one, but frankly, nobody wants a fantasy league with more than 12 teams.

You can link directly to the league sign-up page, which is again on yahoo and free of charge. If that link doesn't work, you can manually go to the yahoo fantasy hockey section and use the following info to enter this private league:

league ID#: 25035
password: zamboni

Also, feel free to enter the Pro Football pickem pool I've set up. Although the NFL season has begun, this league hasn't. It's set to start with week two's games. All you have to do is pick the winner for each game. Go to the sign-in page and enter the following:

league ID# 67093
password pickem

In each case, please feel free to enter and invite whomever you want to join us.

This fantasy hockey league is tentatively scheduled to have a live on-line draft on Tuesday September 23 at 7:30 pm eastern time. Please join in!

Canes center ice logo changed!

2008-09-08T17:38:00.004-04:00

As the season rapidly approaches, the ice crew at the RBC Center is busy building the ice. They are currently in the process of painting the logos and lines and whatnot. The guys at Icethetics already wrote about this, so I'll give them a glove tap, but for the second season in a row, Carolina will have a different center ice logo than their standard "sightless eye".

Here's the view from the RBC Center webcam:

Clearly, this is the "secondary" logo, the storm warning flag tied to a hockey stick. It is the same logo which will be the crest on the alternate sweaters. Those sweaters will be officially shown to the public at 12:30 pm on Wednesday. By now, we all have a pretty good idea of what they're going to be. Unfortunately, I won't be attending the press conference.

Last year, the Canes used their special "10th anniversary" logo, a stylized roman numeral ten. This season, they'll use the "storm warning" logo. The following year will be the 10th anniversary of the RBC Center, so there may be yet another special center ice logo.

In other news, one of my Scrabble™-geek acquaintances will be on JEOPARDY tonight. Of course these shows are taped well in advance of the air-date, but he won't say how he did. He's kind of a jackass, so I'm secretly hoping that he comes in third. When I was in college, a friend's mother was on JEOPARDY, and after the taping, she didn't even tell her kids how she did. They had to watch the show to find out that she came in third. Anyway, I'll be looking for Kurt to do just that tonight.

Week one: Panthers stun Bolts

2008-09-07T19:29:00.003-04:00

I don't usually write much about football on these pages, but it's something to keep us occupied until the beginning of October.

Yes, I'm aware that my headline looks like a hockey game synopsis. Naturally, I did that on purpose. However, the game I'm talking about was between the NFL's Carolina Panthers and the San Diego Chargers. After leading 19-10 in the fourth quarter, Carolina fell behind 24-19 late in the game, only to win the game in dramatic fashion.

Week one of the NFL is when I'm pretty excited about football. Oh sure, like football, but by week eight, I've lost my interest. The beginning of football season signals the beginning of cooler nights and shorter days. More importantly, it means that hockey season is just around the corner.

Being a native North Carolinian, It's natural that the Carolina Panthers are my team. With a bionically rebuilt quarterback, a tandem running back situation, and a wide receiving corps made up of little-used depth guys and the ageless Muhsin Muhammad while Steve Smith rides the pine, the Panthers were hoping to run the ball a lot, chew up the clock, and depend on the defense to keep them in the game.

As it turned out, the defense did more than keep them in the game. Carolina's defense held Ladianian Tomlinson to less than 100 yards on the ground. They scored a defensive touchdown. They held the fort at some critical times.

Carolina's offense looked good early, but they were all Maxim Afinogenov-like. All Russian, no Finnish. They moved the ball down the field, but were stopped inside the one once, and settled for three first-half field goals.

Carolina added another field goal in the second half, plus a defensive touchdown, and found themselves in the driver's seat with about seven minutes to go. However, the defense gave up a touchdown, then the offense turned the ball over, leading to another touchdown just before the two minute warning.

Jake Delhomme, fresh off a Tommy John surgery, and playing without his favorite target, had to march down the field and get a touchdown. That's exactly what he did. Muhammad made some key catches. Dwayne Jarret made some key catches. The biggest of them all, though, was tight end Dante Rosario, who led all Panthers with 97 receiving yards on seven grabs.

The play straight out of a storybook. Carolina called its last timeout with 0:02 remaining and the ball on the Chargers' 14 yard-line. There are no running plays for this scenario. From the shotgun, Jake bobbled the snap, bought some time, then made a pump fake so convincing that the camera guys bought it. He sent a pass through two defenders to Rosario in the back of the endzone for the dramatic 25-24 win. The San Diego crowd fell deadly silent.

This is not how this was supposed to happen. I don't think anyone in their right mind would have predicted a Carolina win.

That game-winning drive was vintage Jake. If there were any doubts about his rebuilt shoulder, let them be cast aside. He's back. The way he led the team down the field and capped it off with a walk-off touchdown reminded me of 2003, when he stole the starting job from Rodney Peete and halftime of week one. That game ended the same way.

Rookie runningback Jonathan Stewart had a great game, as did the other half of the two-headed monster, DeAngelo Williams.

Smitty will be out for one more week, then it'll be just like 2003. Delhomme, Muhammad, Smith.

Once hockey season starts, you won't hear me go on about football anymore. Until then, I'll be doing this every Sunday.

Pro football pick'em now open

2008-09-06T14:05:00.003-04:00

Just for fun, I've just opened up a NFL football pick'em league. Please feel free to sign up and invite whomever you want. Like the fantasy hockey, this is over on Yahoo, and is completely free.

Go to this site, then click on "join a group". At the prompts, enter:
group id#: 67093
password: pickem

All you have to do is simply predict the winners of each game. No point spreads. No over/under. Simply pick who will win, then predict a couple of scoring scenarios for tiebreaking purposes.

Since there was a game on Thursday, week one is already in progress, and we are locked out. Our group's competition will start in week 2. Hurry on in. Tell your friends and family. Up to 50 people can join the group!

Sneak peek at Carolina's third?

2008-09-05T21:42:00.003-04:00

I received an official e-mail from the Hurricanes today, confirming what had already been confirmed a day earlier: the Hurricanes will unveil their alternate sweaters in a press conference on Wednesday September the 10th. The e-mail included this "tease" of a photo:

Is this really a sneak peak? I don't think so.

One thing I am pretty sure of is that this is some modified version of what will be the shoulder patch. After examining the photo at some length, including the stitching, it seems like there's no way that this is the chest crest.

It also seems pretty clear that the colors have been altered. This isn't the real thing. There's a part of me that thinks that this charcoal gray look would be really awesome, but I just don't think that it's really it. As much as everyone else in the world says it's overused, the sweater will almost certainly be black, and the "sighless eye" logo will maintain its red and black scheme.

I've pretty much decided that I'm signed up for a new third sweater, and I only need to decide whose name and number I'll wear. Sorry, but I just don't like blank sweaters.

Again, we'll know exactly what it looks like at 12:30 on Wednesday. I won't be attending, so I'd appreciate a photo text message from anyone who does attend.

Training camp rosters announced

2008-09-05T01:48:00.004-04:00

Training camp officially opens in two weeks, but the Hurricanes announced the roster of 59 players who will be attending.

2008 draftees Zach Boychuk and Michal Jordan will be in attendance, but neither has any hope of making the big team. Sadly, Jordan will not be wearing the number 23. Boychuk will.

Worth watching will be a bevy of defensemen: Brett Carson, Bryan Rodney, Noah Babin, Mark Flood, Brett Bellemore. Also, a couple of defensemen who have already had a cup of coffee: Casey Borer and Tim Conboy. The once and future Hurricane Anton Babchuk is expected to earn a roster spot out of camp.

By far and away, the forward to watch will be 2007 first round selection Brandon Sutter, who has already been slotted into the starting lineup. In ink.

There are a handful of forward prospects who will also be worth watching: Mike Angeledis, Jakub Petruzalek, Drayson Bowman, Jerome Samson.

2008 second round draftee Zach Dalpe will not be present, as he is enrolled at Ohio State.

Jeff O'Neill will give it his best, but the odds are against him.

Canes to unveil third sweater on September 10

2008-09-05T01:39:00.002-04:00

On Thursday, the Hurricanes announced that they will be holding a press conference at 12:30 on Wednesday September 10 to unveil their new third sweater. This is 11 days earlier than originally planned, and they will now be the first team to introduce the new sweater.

The press conference will be open to the public, but RBH will be unable to attend. Y'know. That whole "job" thing.

According to an official team announcement, Eric Staal, Cam Ward and Tim Gleason will model the new sweaters and pose for photos. Presumably, they will also announce the 15 games in which the new black sweaters will be worn.

The sweaters will be available for sale on September 21.

Fantasy hockey league open!

2008-09-04T00:54:00.003-04:00

I've had a lot of questions about the fantasy hockey league, and I'm happy to say that I've got the league set up.

Go here to sign up. If, for some reason, that link doesn't work, go to the Yahoo Fantasy Hockey page, then sign up that way. Once again (and so it will keep an archive of stats), the league is called "The boys of winter". The information you will need is

league id#: 1335
password: stanley

This league is open to any and all comers. For now, it's limited to 12 spots, so move quickly. If the response is good enough, I'll set up a second league.

For those who played last season and remember how ridiculously big I set the roster sizes, that's been changed to a much more manageable size.

None of the settings are set in stone, but I've also changed some of the scoring categories from last season. Unless there's a great enough demand for a daily roster change, we'll use a weekly system with weeks starting on Monday.

Sign up, and invite whomever you want. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to email me at redblackhockey@earthlink.net.

Changes coming

2008-09-03T23:39:00.003-04:00

Although season tickets won't be mailed out for another two weeks, I've checked the status of mine, and there's going to be a change this season.

Since the second half of the 2002-03 season, I've had mini-season ticket plans with a seat somewhere in section 112. I love it there. I've moved around four times within that section, but I haven't strayed. I've gone to a random game here and there where I sat somewhere else, but section 112 of the RBC Center has been my home away from home. I know a lot of the regulars, and I love the view from there. This year, it's going to be a little different.

At my request for "closer to the ice rather than on the aisle", my ticket rep was certainly able to do that. I'm in the fifth row. However, in order to get that, I had to move all the way over to section 113. It's not very far. Just a few feet, really. Actually, this will put me right behind a guy who lived across the street from me 30 years ago. That makes me feel old to say that.

As usual, the Canes are offering some trade-in dates. Season Ticket Holders can turn in an unused ticket for a ticket to a different game. This year, they're also giving each STHer vouchers for free tickets. With the package that I have, I get two vouchers. There are a couple of games that are blacked out, but for the most part, the only restriction is that they must be redeemed at least two days before the game. This is a nice gesture by the team to mitigate the price hikes.

So I'll have to get used to some new neighbors and a slightly different vantage. I'm up for it. Since I will once again be extremely close to the ice, I may start taking game photos again. I'd like to buy a new camera, but that's a whole nother pot of stew that I don't need to start cooking just yet.

Speaking of change, there will be some changes here at RBH in the coming weeks. You'll know when we get there.

It looks like Tim Gleason will also be undergoing a change. He'll be wearing Bret Hedican's old number. I'll no longer have to hold my breath when I see #6 climbing over the boards. This will be Timmy's third different number in as many seasons with Carolina. I wouldn't plunk down any cash for a Gleason 6 sweater, as he's liable to change again next season.

Another change will certainly come in the way of who wears the As. Eric Staal and Ray Whitney will be wearing them. For the past couple of seasons, Carolina has used three Alternates in rotating fashion. The NHL regulates that a team can have one Captain and up to two Alternates in the lineup, or, if the Captain is out of the lineup they may have three Alternates. Anyway, Glen Wesley has been one of the Alternates forever, and Carolina may name a defenseman to be the third Alternate. Tim Gleason is the only guy who could fit into that role. The other guys are either too new, or too quiet (Wallin) or can't speak English to save his life (Kaberle). Since one of the functions of the Alternate is to speak with the referees, speaking English is pretty crucial.

Lindros : "Take your ceremony and shove it"

2008-09-01T23:22:00.003-04:00

Over at TSN, I saw this innocuous looking article about the Flyers paying tribute to the old Spectrum with a special ceremony on September 27th.

Two things jumped out at me. First, Eric Lindros is still pretty upset about the way things ended in Philly. The Flyers are throwing a party and a pre-season game against the Hurricanes in the Spectrum. They have invited all 15 former Captains to the ceremony. It sounds like most are going to be there, while Lindros has said that he has a "previous commitment".

One other thing about this article is that it's very poorly typed, and not edited at all. In addition to a couple of typographical and punctuation errors, the writer referred to Keith Primeau as "Kevin". I cut and pasted this quote as is:

While Clarke, Lou Angotti, Mel Bridgman, Dave Poulin, Ed Van Impe, Bill Barber, Ron Sutter and Kevin Primeau have confirmed their attendance, Lindros has declined because of a previous commitment according to senior vice president of business operations Shawn Tilger.

That's good for at least one laugh.

While I'm on the topic of Lindros, I beg you to revisit an article about him from The Onion in November of 2007.

In case you've forgotten just how monstrous the 1992 Lindros-to-Philly trade was, I'll rehash it. Quebec sent Eric Lindros to the Flyers in what has to be one of the most ridiculous trades ever. In return, the Nordiques got:

the rights to Foppa, who was still in Swedish Junior Hockey

Steve Duchesne, who put up 82 (20/62) points in 1992-93

defenseman Kerry Huffman

Mike Ricci, who put up 78 (27/51) points in 92-93

Ron Hextall, who won 29 games in nets in 92-93

Chris Simon

a first round pick which became Jocelyn Thibault

a first round pick which became Nolan Baumgartner
and here's the kicker....

$15M in cash.

There is no doubt that Lindros had a brilliant career with the Flyers. There is also no doubt that the Nordiques/Avs got the better end.

That monstrous trade came just after an arbitrator had invalidated a huge trade with the Rangers that would have been:

Doug Weight

Tony Amonte

Alexei Kovalev

John Vanbiesbrouck

1993 first round pick (Niklas Sundstrom)

1994 first round pick (Dan Cloutier)

1995 first round pick

$12M cash

When Lindros was finally traded away from Philly after he missed the entire 2000-01 season due to concussions, the return wasn't quite so fantastic. Two bums who would later become Hurricanes (Jan Hlavac, Pavel Brendl) plus Kim Johnsson and a third round pick (Stefan Ruzcika).

Seven years after the trade, Lindros is still sore about the way team doctors treated him in Philly. He's still sore about Bobby Clarke calling him "soft" in the papers. He's still sore about not getting a trade to Toronto. He's still sore about getting stripped of his captaincy.

What Eric Lindros needs to understand is that this isn't about Bobby Clarke. This isn't about some team doctor. This is about the city of Philadelphia, the fans, the building. This is ...

What would Kate Smith do?

Caniac Carnival September 21

2008-09-01T22:19:00.003-04:00

On Sunday September 21, the Hurricanes will be hosting the ninth annual "Caniac Carnival" to kick off the season. Full details are here. In addition to the normal stuff -- live music, autograph sessions, interactive games, kiddie inflatable games, Stormy, the Storm Squad, and a red-white scrimmage, the Hurricanes will officially unveil their third sweater, which will make its on-ice debut on October 13 against the Red Wings. This event starts at 10:00am and will last until 2:30, followed by the scrimmage at 3:00. Parking, the Carnival, and the scrimmage are all free.

Earlier in the summer, I read that the sweater would be unveiled at the Carnival, but not available for sale until a few days later. However, I have heard that it will be available for sale on the 21st. I've saved up enough dough to pay for one. The question is simply whose name and number. I have a Williams home sweater and a defunct Vasicek home sweater. I'm not really interested in getting a Brind'Amour or a Staal. Those are too common. However, there's no safer bet than a Staal. He's not getting traded, and he's not going to have a crummy season. Also, it's a sure thing that those will be fully stocked. Still, I'm considering LaRose and Samsonov. I'm even considering Corvo.

Anyway, I was reading Behind the Jersey today, which was the impetus for this post. It seems the Red Wings are throwing a two-day Fan Fun Fest similar to the Caniac Carnival. The first day is open to season ticket holders only, and the second day is open to the public at a cost of $5 a head.

Christy alluded to a three-day "convention" put on by the Blackhawks (and sponsored by the Ferrara Pan family of candies) this summer. They sold out the event at -- get this -- $50 a head. Free is awesome. I'd happily pay $5, but $50 is a little much. For that, I'd expect Stan Mikita to take me out for pizza and beer afterwards.

As an aside, I'm completely befuddled by the "Chewy Atomic Fireball". What? Chewy? That's just wrong. Fireballs aren't chewy. You're supposed to break a tooth if you attempt to chew a Fireball. I'm no candy head (I am, after all, a grown man), but I love Atomic Fireballs. I'm as disgusted by this as I am by Chocolate Skittles. And Gus Van Sant's disgraceful redux of Psycho. Those are all wrong. Just wrong.

Okay... I'm off my soapbox now.

I don't know who else is going, but the 21st is a Sunday, and I plan on being at the Carnival. Whoever wants to meet up, just give me a holler.

My favorite Canes by sweater number

2008-08-31T01:49:00.002-04:00

This summer, one of the things that some bloggers have been doing is to list an all-time Hurricanes team. I didn't do that, but when I was messing around looking at the historical sweater numbers, I thought I'd list my favorite Hurricanes not by position, but by sweater number. Some of them are no-brainers because there's only one candidate. Others are no-brainers because the competition isn't much to speak of.

To be honest, there's quite a few players who I either can't remember, or I never heard of to begin with. Anyway, here's the list.

1 Arturs Irbe wins this one easy. "The Little Latvian" was never a world-beater, and he cried like a little girl when he lost the full-time job to Kevin Weekes, but he had some fantastic games in the 2002 cup run, and he's been a great guy in his post-Hurricane days.

2 Glen Wesley is the only candidate, but would win hands down anyway. No Hurricanes player will ever wear that number again.

3 The late Steve Chiasson was and will be the only Hurricane to wear the number.

4 Aaron Ward gets it.

5 Despite scoring the Cup-winning goal in 2006, Frantisek Kaberle loses this one to another Czech defenseman, Marek Malik.

6 Bret Hedican gets this. As much as I complained about him, when he was on, he was a marvel to watch.

7 Nic Wallin. How many other guys have three playoff overtime goals? None.

8 Matt Cullen wins a tight race with Sandis Ozolinsh.

9 vacant --- Gordie Howe

10 some guy named Ron Francis. Poor Gary Roberts would easily make this list if he had worn any other number.

11 Kevin Dineen and Jeff Daniels put up some very tough fights, but Justin Williams wins this one.

12 Eric Staal, easily

13 It wasn't easy to give Bates Battaglia any consideration on this, and it goes to Ray Whitney in a landslide.

14 This is a really tough one. I really like Sergei Samsonov, but it just wouldn't be fair to take it away from Kevyn Adams. K-Ads gets it.

15 Tuomo Ruutu edges out Marty Murray

16 Andrew Ladd wins this one, even though he was nothing more than a source of constant frustration.

17 Rod Brind'Amour will certainly be the last player to don that number for the Canes. He wins this easily.

18 Even though he was just a rental player, I gotta go with Mark Recchi.

19 Although there are six candidates, Radim Vrbata wins it easily.

20 Jan Hlavac beat out two other guys. He only played for the Canes for less than a full season, but he recorded a hat trick against Detroit in November of 2002 and became a legend.

21 Ron Francis gets this one too. He had to wear 21 for a season because Gary Roberts was being unreasonable and refused to give up the #10.

22 Sean Hill edges out Mike Commodore.

23 Martin Gelinas.

24 Sami Kapanen beats out Scott Walker.

25 This will be Joni Pitkänen's number.

26 Erik Cole takes it, but Ray Sheppard put up a serious fight. Sheppard was a beast in the 1999 playoffs.

27 Although I don't remember it this way, Rod Brind'Amour wore #27 in 2000 because Jeff Daniels was wearing #17. However, I have to give #27 to Craig "Hands of Feet" Adams.

28 This is a really boring one, and Andrew Hutchinson gets it for being the least boring.

29 Martin Gerber. Easily.

30 Cam Ward. Easily.

31 Craig MacDonald. I have only a very vague recollection of him, and the only other candidate was Tyler Moss, who I've never heard of.

33 Anton Babchuk is scheduled to wear this number this coming season. I'll give it to him instead of Dave Karpa.

34 Dave Gove didn't get many chances to play, but he earned his paycheck.

35 Tom Barrasso.

36 I like Brandon Nolan here.

37 Keith Aucoin really busted his tail and made the best of his limited chances.

38 Tim Conboy made a big name for himself with his work ethic, and he'll have a bigger role this coming season.

39 Brad DeFauw scored his first NHL goal in his debut game in 2002-03. He only played a few NHL games, but for that nifty feat, he beat out the Stanley Cup rental Doug Weight.

42 Timmmmmaay Gleason easily beats out Jeff "cousin of the Staal brothers" Heerema.

44 Patrick Eaves

45 It pains me to say it, but David Tanabe is the best player to ever have worn the #45 for the Hurricanes.

46 I don't recall him wearing this number, but Mike Zigomanis gets this one.H

47 Brad Fast scored his one and only NHL goal in his one and only NHL game. He easily beats out Johnny Crackers.

48 Anton Babchuk

49 Michael Leighton (uncontested)

51 Andrei Kovalenko

52 Damian Surma (uncontested)

53 Casey Borer

55 Keith Primeau was the captain, but he doesn't win this one. Daniil Markov does, simply because he was the player who was traded for Justin Williams. Of course Primeau was traded for Brind'Amour, but Primeau also disgraced the team. Markov gets it.

56 Brett Lysak (uncontested)

59 Chad LaRose (uncontested)

61 Cory Stillman (uncontested)

62 Jaro Svoboda (uncontested)

63 Josef Vasicek (uncontested)

70 Oleg Tverdovsky (uncontested)

71 Tomas Malec (uncontested)

77 It's really hard not to give this to HOFer Paul Coffey, but I gotta go with Joe Corvo on this one.

80 Kevin Weekes (uncontested)

92 Jeff O'Neill (uncontested)

All numbers not listed have never been worn.

Sweater numbers

2008-08-30T13:19:00.003-04:00

The other day, James Mirtle wrote a post about the best players by sweater number last season. He pointed out that there were seven numbers between 1 and 98 that no player donned last season.

66. Nobody's really gonna try to wear that number ever again

69. Only one player has ever worn that number. For good reason.

86. Only a player with a great sense of humor would wear that.

98

Using the sweater number archive at Hockey-Reference as a guide,we can see that since the 1998-99 season, no player has ever worn the number 98. That's the only number not to have been worn.

We can also see that only two non-goalies have worn the number 30. Andrei Zyuzin, who wore #30 as a defenseman in Tampa for three seasons (1999/2000-01/02) and Jean-Francois Jomphe who in 1999 played six games at center in Montréal with the 30 sweater.

Their sweater number archives don't go further back than the 1998-99 season, but it can be a fun way to waste some time.

I have some amateur plumbing to take care of in my bathroom today. I'm 100% confident that I'll mess it up. At some point later today, I'll go through the all-time Hurricanes sweater numbers and pick my favorites.

Jeff O'Neill at Camp Brind'Amour

2008-08-28T17:10:00.002-04:00

By now, everybody in the hockey-watching world has heard that Jeff "public urination" O'Neill is back in Raleigh fighting for a chance at a job in the NHL. He left Carolina after the lockout ended, spent two seasons in Toronto and one out of hockey completely.

I've heard numerous reports about how O'Neill is working hard at the unofficial practices with Rod Brind'Amour, Chad LaRose and a motley crew of others, including Bates Battaglia. One thing that I find slightly amusing is this quote from Brind'Amour, which I've seen in a number of places, but I'll attribute to Chip Alexander's article:

"When you're a smart player, and he's always been a smart player, you're always going have that. He's always going to have that ability to see the game, and his skating looks fine. He looks like he did when he left."

And Cam Ward with a similar quote:

Nothing has changed. He still looks like the same old self.

This is meant to be praise for O'Neill, who spent last season skating and working out, but not playing. However, those of us who remember what O'Neill looked like when he left might get a chuckle out of that. O'Neill was overweight, lazy and a bit of a bad banana when he left. Even before the second DUI and the comedic arrest for public urination, he had fallen out of favor with the Hurricanes faithful. By the end of the 2003-04 season, I was booing him with regularity, and I wasn't the only one doing so.

Since the DUI, Jeff has changed a lot. His brother was killed in a car crash, which prompted him to request a trade to Toronto. He got some of his game back, but nothing like the 67 (41/26) he scored in 2000-01. He followed that season with a 31-goal season, and a 30-goal season, but in that terrible year when he got fat and drunk, he scored just 14. In Toronto, he had a 19-goal and a 20-goal season before "retiring" prior to last season. So he was back on track a little.

In addition, O'Neill is older and calmer. He is married now, and his wife is expecting. That'll get just about anybody to straighten up and fly right.

Still, despite these votes of confidence, O'Neill isn't banking on anything and he's not looking for any special treatment. Paul Branecky had an article on the Hurricanes main page today, portraying O'Neill as a cautiously optimistic guy on a tryout. The article is a good read, but here's the money quote, from Jeff himself:

This is not really that big a deal. This is just a tryout where we’ll see what happens. If I play well and it looks like I can play, maybe something will happen. If not, it’s not going to happen... Jim Rutherford and Ronnie Francis, I consider them friends of mine and I think they’re going to be straight-up honest with me. If it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen, they’re just going to tell me it’s not going to happen. It’s as simple as that.

When O'Neill was given the invitation, the prevailing thought was that they were bringing him in strictly as a potential River Rat. Now, the rumor is starting to spin around and it seems like some of the talk is about him being on the big team. It's extremely unlikely, mostly because of the contract status of all the guys. If anyone's going to Albany, it's gonna have to be O'Neill.

My guess is that he'll either be picked up by someone else out of training camp, or he'll be signed to a two-way contract and immediately shipped to Albany.

One of these days before official camp opens, I'm gonna try to get out to "Camp Brind'Amour" to see for myself.

RIP Julia Rowe

2008-08-26T22:22:00.003-04:00

On Tuesday, some sad news rocked the Hurricanes players, coaches and fans. Young Julia Rowe, who was an inspiration for the team in their 2006 Stanley Cup victory, lost her life-long battle with Leukemia. Julia was just eight years old.

The Rowe family are neighbors with coach Peter Laviolette, and in 2006 he became very close with them. He was moved by Julia's strength as she fought off a very aggressive form of Leukemia. He started a crusade with the red "relentless" wristbands, which were sold at Hurricanes home games, raising more than $60,000. In addition, trainer Pete Friesen has raised over $42,000 for LLS through his annual 5K road race.

Luke Decock wrote a very nice article today about Julia's passing.

It was a bottle of wine donated to the team by Rowe's father and autographed by Julia that Sabres coach Lindy Ruff referred to as "champaign on ice" during games 6 and 7 of the 2006 ECF.

You can purchase a red "relentless" wristband here , or if you think that whole wristband thing is played out, you can still make a donation to the LLS of Eastern North Carolina by visiting this page.

Friesen's third annual "fun run" will take place on Sunday September 14, and information about it (including a registration form) can be found here.

Just a month ago, the Penguins community lost a young friend and inspiriation for their Cup run when 18-year old John Challis passed away after a life-long battle with cancer. Post-Gazetter has the story here.

Two seasons ago, the Senators had a heartbreaking loss during their own Cup run when three-year old Elgin-Alexander Fraser died from a form of childhood cancer called neuroblastoma. Here's how I relayed that story.

Hurricanes winger Justin Williams became friends with Julia's family, and he has been pretty shaken up. He was quoted by Chip Alexander:

It's really heart-breaking for someone so young to go so early... In her own way, she was a part of the team. She really touched our lives. It's an extremely huge loss for everyone.

My heart goes out to the Rowe family for their loss.

RBH predicts player performance

2008-08-25T07:39:00.003-04:00

Yesterday, I picked up The Hockey News special fantasy hockey/pool edition. It breaks down the top 100 players and also predicts the point production of most players. Just for fun, I'll compare what they predict for Hurricanes players to what I predict.

This is simply meat and potatoes. No analysis for right now. The players are arranged by where I think they'll fit on the depth chart:

Ray Whitney. THN sees a 68 (27/41) point campaign. I've got him at 61 (25/36)

Eric Staal. THN has 79 (35/44) points for him, while I have 93 (42/51)

Justin Williams. THN predicted 63 (30/33), and I went for 73 (36/37)

Sergei Samsonov. THN said 51 (22/29), and I think it'll be 55 (25/30)

Rod Brind'Amour. THN predicted 74 (24/50) for the Cap, but I predict 68 (27/41)

Patrick Eaves. THN picked 30 (15/15), and I said 34 (16/18)

Tuomo Ruutu. THN went with 43 (15/28), but I went with 33 (11/22)

Matt Cullen. THN forsees 49 (15/34), and I'm going with 46 (21/25)

Scott Walker. THN said 45 (20/25), and I say 44 (17/27)

Chad LaRose. THN predicts 25 (10/15), and I'm going with 30 (15/15)

Brandon Sutter. THN predicts 20 (9/11) for the rookie, and I'll say 29 (12/17)

Ryan Bayda. THN doesn't have Bayda on the chart, and I'm predicting 13 (4/9) for him

Joe Corvo. THN sees 54 (14/40) in his future, and I see 65 (15/50)

Tim Gleason. THN predicts 21 (4/17), and I think he'll have 19 (6/13)

Joni Pitkanen. THN has him for 34 (9/25), and I've got him for 35 (8/27)

Nic Wallin isn't on THN's radar, but I'm predicting 13 (4/9) for him.

Frantisek Kaberle. THN thinks he'll put up 25 (3/22) points. I'm not sure he'll be on Carolina's roster, but I'll pick 12 (1/11) for him.

Anton Babchuk. THN picks him for 16 (3/13), and I pick him for just 9 (2/7)

Tim Conboy isn't on THN's radar either. I think he'll have 8 (3/5) points.

Dennis Seidenberg. THN predicts 20 (3/17) for the German, while I see only 11 (2/9) points for him.

There will be other players who come up from Albany, but these will be the mainstays.

Also, the goalies:

Cam Ward THN sees a 37-win campaign, while I've got him down for 38.

Michael Leighton THN thinks he'll win 10 games, but I think he'll win 7.

I'm predicting Carolina to have a 45-28-9 season. Sadly, 99 points won't win the division, but it'll be good enough for a #5 spot in the playoffs.

Any thoughts?

Tanabe situation gets murkier

2008-08-23T12:46:00.002-04:00

On Friday, Chip Alexander reported that David Tanabe is still suffering from concussion-like or post-concussion symptoms. It has now been seven months since his mysterious injury and two since the Canes attempted to buy out the remaining year on his contract.

I have openly questioned the validity of his situation, and I have been unimpressed with the "details" that have emerged. This doesn't accord with my outspoken support for taking concussions very seriously, but I'm just not making heads or tails of this situation.

The occurrence of the injury itself can't be pinpointed, but we know that he was taken out of the December 18 game against the Leafs and never returned during the 2007-08 season. Had he been injured previously and some mild collision put him over the edge? Perhaps. That's the consensus. His refusal to go to team meetings and exit interviews has been well documented. His decision to clean out his own locker has been well documented. What has not been documented has been his medical status. The only details we have been afforded have been shady at best. Usually, injury status updates are more frequent and more detailed, but we went months without hearing a single word. Even now, we get some very unspecific news that Tanabe is "unfit to play".

Unfortunately, we haven't been given any details. When someone has an issue with their foot, we usually get lots of details, such as with Ryan Whitney:

Pittsburgh Penguins defenceman Ryan Whitney will be out three to five months following surgery to correct a chronic problem with his left foot... Dr. Robert Anderson operated Friday in Charlotte, N.C. The newspaper described the surgery as an osteotomy, defined as a procedure to shorten, lengthen or realign a bone or bones.

(via Canadian Press)
When Matt Cullen was out with a concussion, we were given nearly daily updates with specific details about what kinds of specialists he was seeing and what his specific problems were. Take this one for example, from the N&O on Feb 2:

In addition to Mike Peters, the team's eye doctor, Cullen is also working with concussion expert Kevin Guskiewicz at the University of North Carolina and Cary neuro-optometrist Susan Durham.

So why now do we get the vaguest of details? All we know is that Tanabe went to an anonymous doctor at an anonymous clinic in Buffalo who gave the very broad prognosis: "not a clean bill of health".

Anyway, Jim Rutherford has announced that he expects for Tanabe to report to camp and be monitored by official team doctors. This might help shed some light on things. I know concussions are hard things to work with because of the complexity of symptoms and the fact that they aren't as easy to diagnose and monitor as, say, a broken bone. Still, it's very frustrating to not know anything about the status.

Summer doldrums continue

2008-08-23T10:28:00.002-04:00

This summer has been magnificently boring. The Olympics broke the monotony a little bit, but the stuff I'm interested in is over, so now I'm just counting down the days to when training camp starts, to when the preseason games start, to when the third sweater will be released, and finally to when the regular season begins.

There hasn't been very much action at all. Some bloggers have been writing "five things I would change about the NHL" or "100 things about me" posts, just so they could have SOMEthing to write about. I've been thinking about writing a "one thing about me" post, or maybe some posts about music. I'll get to those later. Or not.

I've been keeping half of one eye on the Kings this summer. They're well below the salary cap floor and there have been a number of rumors about how they're going to remedy that. I'm completely puzzled by the fact that they haven't re-signed the youngster Patrick O'Sullivan, who was one of their best players last year with 53 (22/31) points last year. They've already let Mike Cammalleri go, they're overstocked with inexperienced goalies, dreadfully thin on defense, and as September looms, they're still not doing anything about it.

The most puzzling of all that is the O'Sullivan situation. I haven't heard a word about contract negotiations, and I've heard his name mentioned in a couple of trade rumors, but I nearly fell out of my seat when I saw "O'Sullivan wins 49'ers QB starting job" on my Yahoo NFL news. I thought "Wow, that's certainly a surprise", but then I quickly realized that they weren't talking about Patrick O'Sullivan. As it turns out, it's J.T. O'Sullivan, who has never started an NFL game in his six year career.

This is what happens when you're desperate for some hockey news. You misinterpret things. One time, my friend Patrick saw "Shockey", as in Jeremy Shockey, NFL tight end, come across the ESPN crawl. Without pausing to think about it, he said "What the heck is ess hockey?"

N&O takes two steps backwards

2008-08-18T19:31:00.003-04:00

Late Saturday night, we Hurricanes fans got a huge shock. Our beat writer with the Raleigh News & Observer is moving along. Luke Decock, who has brilliantly covered the Hurricanes since 2000 has been "promoted" from being a Canes beat writer to a general Sports columnist.

This is a shame. Luke is a very good hockey writer who is not only worshiped around here, but respected around the rest of the league. He will continue to contribute, but will no longer be able to devote 100% of his attention to the Hurricanes.

In his place, the N&O has slotted former NC State Wolfpack beat writer Chip Alexander, who admits that he doesn't know a thing about hockey. This is a huge, huge mistake. There are other writers on the staff (I'm specifically looking at Lorenzo Perez) who are far more capable.

Alexander made an inauspicious debut by bragging about his college basketball knowledge and bashing Luke for his lack of same. His transition was going to be hard enough, but he made it about 1200% harder with this pathetic introductory post. He hasn't exactly endeared himself to the masses. I hope it gets better before it gets worse. Alexander has had a history of being an infrequent contributor to the Hurricanes coverage in the N&O, and to hear the Acid Queen tell it, he didn't do a very good job.

If I were a Raleighite and/or a subscriber to the print edition of the N&O, I would angrily cancel my subscription to the paper. As is, I will have to be a little upset about this changing of the guard.

Alexander has already taken a wrong step with his unintentional slight of his brilliant predecessor. I might be overreacting or making an incorrect reading, but it also seems like he's taking a slightly confrontational approach to hockey

There's a reason that Luke Decock is a frequent contributor to The Hockey News. There's a reason that he's well respected around the League. He's a great hockey writer. Heck, he's a great writer, period. I'm sad to see him take leave of his post. I'm skeptical about the N&O's choice to fill that void. I'd love to be proven wrong, but I'm going into this with low expectations.

As an aside, Luke wrote a great piece today about one Canes season ticket holder who took the Cole/Pitkanen trade very hard. It isn't that it's a great hockey article. It's good writing. Although he won't be out of the fold completely, we're going to miss Luke's every day articles. Partly for his in-depth knowledge of the game and the players who play it. Mostly, though, because he's a terrific writer.

....Also a new league record

2008-08-16T11:12:00.005-04:00

Chad "Sharpie" LaRose just might have earned himself a new nickname: Nuke

The Hurricanes centerman and fan favorite was invited to the Durham Bulls Athletic Park to throw out a ceremonial first pitch on Thursday for the Bulls' game against the Norfolk Tides. This is the 20th anniversary of the great movie "Bull Durham", and the Bulls have been celebrating this all season long. LaRose's appearance on Thursday had nothing to do with the Bull Durham celebration, but in an unintentional way, it did.

From the movie, you may remember the professional debut of Ebby Calvin "Nuke" LaLoosh, the fireball pitcher with control problems, played by Tim Robbins. After his debut, the manager "Skip" (played by Trey Wilson) and the assistant Larry Hockett (played by Robert Wuhl) had the following conversation:

Skip: He walked 18
Larry: A new league record
Skip: He struck out 18
Larry: Another new league record. In addition, he hit the sportswriter, the public address announcer, the Bull mascot. Twice! Also new league records.

Incidentally, I've always had a serious problem with this opening baseball scene. The visiting team is referred to as the Peninsula White Sox on a few occasions, but they are very clearly the Hagerstown Suns. I'm just sayin'.

Anyway, Chad LaRose went out to make the ceremonial first pitch, which sailed high and wide, hitting a little girl in the back. She was on the field, about to go play the National Anthem on her flute, or recorder, or tambourine, or whatever. That detail isn't important. Only that he hit her. Apparently, Nuke's pitch was not exactly a fastball, because the little girl was completely uninjured. LaRose told N&O writer Luke Decock that there were no hard feelings on her side and that he was pretty shaken up by the whole ordeal:

"She came up to the seats and got pictures with me and everything," LaRose said. "I was the one more hurt by it than her, I think. … Everyone's fine except for me. I'm traumatized by the whole situation."

This is where Nuke misses his buddy Mike Commodore. If Commy were still around, he would have been the one making that pitch, and it would have been much more successful. Commodore, who is a baseball nut, was a regular fixture at Bulls games while he was with the Hurricanes. No footage of Sharpie's fiasco, but here's some archival footage of Commy at DBAP:
.

Jeez. I just wrote something about baseball. Is is October yet?

The most ridiculous rumor I've heard all summer

2008-08-11T15:00:00.004-04:00

WufPirate, over at Carolina on Ice wrote about this earlier today, and I feel compelled to join the conversation.

Some rumor monger (no, not that one) is suggesting that the Hurricanes are in talks with the Wild about the insanely overpaid Marian Gaborik.

With apologies, I'll paste the entire post from Hockey Leaks:

Gaborik To Carolina?
8/8/2008 Posted by Cjohnson202
I spoke with a source today that confirmed for me that Carolina has had very serious discussions with Minnesota about aquiring Marian Gaborik. The Hurricanes feel that Staal and Gaborik could be one of the most lethal combinations in the NHL. The rumour I have heard would send Justin Williams, F. Kaberle, prospect Jamie Mcbain and a 1st round draft pick to Minnesota for Marian Gaborik and something else to be determined. The Wild continue to shop Gaborik around the NHL, as Gaborik has made it clear to management that he intends to move on to a more offense-minding team after his contract runs out following this season. The Wild would prefer to trade him prior to the start of the season.

Carolina is already over their own budget, and this wouldn't solve matters. Carolina needs to get rid of Kaberle, but this wouldn't solve matters. Gaborik will make $7.5M this season, which is a gross overpayment if you ask me. Minnesota's cap hit on that is "only" $6.33, but I'm pretty sure that if any team takes him, they'd be on the hook for all of the $7.5.

If you ask me, Gaborik is no more of a superstar than Viva, who is under contract until June of 2011 for an extremely reasonable $3.5M a season. Carolina would already lose even if it were a straight up trade. I'm not going to lose sleep seeing Kaberle go, but giving up the first round pick would be terrible, and I'm not keen on giving up one of our promising defensive prospects either.

This rumor doesn't even make sense. Carolina can't afford Gaborik from a purely financial standpoint, and there's no way they can afford to give up what that rumor suggests they'd give up.

Gaborik has already entered talks with Spartak Moscow of the KHL, and there have been rumors that Gaborik is headed to Florida for Jay Bouwmeester; that he is headed to Buffalo for Maxim Afinogenov and either Tim Connolly or Ales Kotalik; that he is headed to Pittsburgh; that he is headed to Ottawa; that he is headed to Washington. I'm sure you can even find rumors circulating that Gaborik is headed to Calgary or Philadelphia, both of whom are already over the cap ceiling.

None of these make sense. Even the Moscow "Sparticus" are denying that they are seriously talking to Gaborik. Directly from the HC Spartak Moscow website was this tidbit. Through a rough translation of a Q&A:

Is it true that "Spartacus" was negotiating with the famous Slovak forward Marian Gaborikom from Minnesota?

- Его агенты интересовались возможностью выступать в нашем клубе. -- His agents were interested in the opportunity to speak in our club. Однако когда дело дошло до обсуждения зарплаты, была названа просто астрономическая сумма. But when it came to discussing salary, was called simply astronomical sum. Некоторые люди наивно полагают, что в России все клубы готовы платить огромные деньги. Some people naively believe that all clubs in Russia are willing to pay huge money.

That sounds like the approach that everyone is going to take. "Astronomical sum". Sorry, Marian.

Olympic madness

2008-08-10T23:58:00.003-04:00

Have I mentioned that I love the Olympics?

Some people say that watching swimming is boring. Not me. I love it. If you need any proof of why the swimming events aren't boring, all you have to do is watch the men's 4x100 freestyle relay. That was a thing of beauty. As a proud American, it's easy for me to say that, but it really was gorgeous.

The French were heavily favored to win the event, and even ran some smack, saying "The Americans? We're going to crush them. That's why we're here.". Three legs into the race, it looked like they were going to do just that. Down to the last 50 meters, it looked like they were going to do just that. However, Jason Lezak swam an incredible final lap, smashing the previous record for best split, and helping the Americans win the gold in that event for the first time since 1996.

Michael Phelps now has two golds in his quest for eight. This was supposed to be the hard one. When footage of the incredible finish is available, I'll post it.

Beijing Olympics, and why I like Bela Karolyi

2008-08-10T22:44:00.003-04:00

I'm not gonna lie. I love the Olympics. Winter Olympics, Summer Olympics. It doesn't matter. I try to watch as much as I can, and this summer has been great so far.

Everybody has their opinion about former US women's gymnastics coach Bela Karolyi. I think he's great. When he was a coach, he pushed the girls really hard. He may have been verbally abusive. The verbal abuse isn't necessary, but the harsh reality is that if he didn't push them so hard, they wouldn't have been so great. His most famous proteges, Mary Lou Retton and the magnificent Nadia Comaneci have always come to his defense whenever people have harsh words to say about him. That's good enough for me.

What I love, though, is that he's never shy about criticizing the IOC or the judges. Frankly, they need criticism, and tonight was certainly no exception. After Shawn Johnson was given a very disappointing score after a near-perfect routine on the beam, Karolyi didn't mince his words in an interview with Bob Costas. He sharply criticized the "system", which he says allows for bias, and he called out the Argentinian judge. Instead of hinting at it, he used the word "cheat". Wow. Of course tonight's routines were only for qualifying purposes, but it doesn't matter.

Last night, I watched some of the men's qualifying routines, and I thought that there was some corruption on the part of the judges, or some bias against the US athletes. I talked to some people about it today, but unfortunately, nobody knew what I was talking about. Alexander Artemev had an amazing routine on the pommel horse, but was given a score lower than that of a Chinese gymnast who had a horrible routine on the parallel bars. I was blown away. Furious, even. And it was just a prelim event.

This has always been the rub on events like gymnastics and diving and figure skating. It allows for corrupt judges to influence the results. Unfortunately, there's really no way to fix it.

In the meantime... rock on, Bela.

Kaberle might go to LA. Johnson might leave.

2008-08-09T16:02:00.005-04:00

While I was catching up on some of my blog reading, I found a short post over at The Battle of California about the Kings and their struggle to reach the salary cap floor.

So far, the Kings have only $27.7M in salary commitments for the 2008-09 season. The salary cap floor is $40.7M. They have yet to re-sign RFA forward Patrick O'Sullivan, or the recently traded for Jarret Stoll and Brad Richardson. They have bought out goaltender Dan Cloutier, but still have somewhere between three and five goalies under contract. Granted, most of those contracts are two-way deals, so that money won't count against the cap. They have just four defensemen signed. The free agent market has pretty much dried up, so they're going to have to make some trades to get defensemen and possibly some trades just to take on some salary commitment.

O'Sullivan had a pretty good season in the last year of his entry level contract. He put up 53(22/31) points, and stands to have a payday probably in the neighborhood of $3.5M. Even if that's the case, the Kings would be $9.5 below the cap, and they'll need defense. None of their free agent defensemen can command a big bucks payday, so they're still in trouble versus the cap floor. Why not trade some of their young talent and/or draft picks to Carolina for defenseman Franke Kaberle and his hefty $2.5M salary?

Another interesting thing that's being discussed in LA is another trade that would be done for the express purpose of spending money. One of Carolina's favorite "I hate that guy" guys, Jack Johnson, is in the last year of his entry level contract and could be dangled as attractive trade bait to a team looking to shed some salary this season. Jim Kelly from SI.com suggests that the Blackhawks would make a good trade partner, but his suggestion of Johnson for Khabibulin doesn't make sense because the 'Hawks aren't deep enough in goal to do that, and I don't think Huet is ready to be anointed "the one". The Hawks (and Flames, and Flyers) need to shed salary, but I don't see that particular trade going down.

As for the other? Picking up a veteran defenseman and a salary commitment? Absolutely! I'm not sure what Carolina would want in return if they sent Kaberle that way, though. Draft picks? A bag of pucks? 20 gallons of fuel for the Olympia? (Zamboni™ is a registered trademark, and Carolina's is not a ZAMBONI brand ice resurfacer).

When the Kings traded away their best player -- Mike Cammalleri, it was evident that they're entering yet another rebuilding phase. Now, they have yet to re-sign one of their best young players --Patrick O'Sullivan, and there is talk of trading away one of their other young promising players -- Anze Kopitar or Jack Johnson. They're never going to get better if they keep doing that.

Anyway, I hope the Canes can help them (and themselves) by sending Kaberle out there. Anything at all in return would be great.

Fleer Ultra 2007-08 set complete

2008-08-09T11:07:00.002-04:00

I got my two boxes of Fleer Ultras the other day, hoping to come within a few cards of completing the complete set. I needed 73 cards, and I figured I would get loads of cards I already had. Instead, I nearly completed the set with the first box.

I gave details on the first box break, but the second was a quest for just two cards. It turned out that I indeed had the Mike Cammelleri card that I thought I needed, and it took a little while, but I finally got card # 197 Chris Kunitz to complete the set.

There wasn't anything worth getting excited about in the second box. Just a bunch of common cards, two dozen GPs that I needed and a couple of Ultra Uniformity "jersey" cards. No autograph cards, no numbered, low print cards, no more rookie redemption. It turns out, the one rookie redemption I got in the first box was Jonathan Toews. I have to wait 12-16 weeks for the card to be delivered.

After filing the complete set away and organizing all the extras, it turned out that I was 44 cards shy of a second complete set. I gave the 156 cards, plus a few GP duplicates to my friend Patrick, who is an avid collector.

I'm supposed to be recieving a hobby box of UD Victory 2008-09 cards any day now. They are rumored to be "in transit". That complete set is 198 cards plus two checklists.

Box break 1, part 2

2008-08-07T19:45:00.002-04:00

The first half of the first box break went so well, I thought that I would start pulling ice cubes out of the box for the rest of box one. Instead, that box remained on fire!

I'll spare the pack-by-pack details, but in the 13th pack, I drew a Freddie Modin GP and a Rookie Redemption card! The first six packs were on fire, as I pulled stuff I needed, both for the regular set and the Gold Medallion parallel set. Things started to slow down around pack 19. There was one more decoy card, which I drew with pack 15 and an Alex Ovechkin Scoring King card.

In pack 23, I drew some elusive cards: Erik Cole, Jason Pominville and Chris Neil, to finish off their respective team sets.

At the end of that first box, I am only two cards short of the complete set. Card #107 Michael Cammelleri and card # 197 Chris Kunitz.

As I was on fire, I was hoping to complete the set with the first box, so I could give away the second box, still wrapped. Such is life.

On to box #2.

Box break 1, part 1

2008-08-07T17:41:00.003-04:00

I just opened the first 12 packs from the first of two 24-pack boxes, and things have gone very well so far.

The first pack yielded a David Vyborny Gold Parallel card and four regular cards that I already had. My hopes were in the gutter at that point.

The second pack had a Kyle Wellwood GP and a Jonathan Sigalet rookie card, plus three regular cards that I needed: Dustin Boyd, Brian Rolston, Philippe Bouchard.

Pack three had a Henrik Zetterberg GP and four regular cards I needed: Brad Richards, David Legwand, Freddy Modin and Dion Phaneuf.

Pack four had a Sergei Federov GP and four cards that I needed: Mats Sundin, Georges Laraque, CuJo and Peter Budaj.

The fifth pack had a Johan Holmqvist GP and an Alexander Ovechkin Ultra Action card that I already have. It also had three cards that I needed: Emmanuel Legace, Patrick O'Sullivan and Scott Niedermayer.

Pack six had a Simon Gagne GP, a jersey/auto decoy and four cards that I needed: Johan Holmqvist, Ryan Smyth, Henrik Zetterberg and Tim Thomas. The Holmqvist card completed the Lightning team set.

Pack seven had an Andy McDonald GP (as well as a McDonald regular card), one card that I already had and three that I needed: McDonald, Freddy Norrena and Paul Stastny. Stastny completes the Avalanche set.

Pack eight had a Noah Welch GP and an Aaron Rome rookie card, two cards that I already had and one that I needed: Tomas Kaberle.

The ninth pack had a Tomas Vokoun GP and four cards that I needed: Chris Clark (completes the Capitals team set, Doug Weight (completes the Blues set), Antero Niittymaki and Teemu Selanne.

The tenth pack had a Tomas Vokoun GP, a Joe Thornton Season Crown (assists leader) card, and three cards that I needed: Darcy Tucker (completes the Leafs set), Rick DiPietro (completes the Islanders set) and Gilbert "shoulda been drafted by Carolina" Brule (completes the Dinner Jackets set).

Pack 11 had a Joe Thornton GP and a Brad Stuart Ultra Uniformity jersey card. It also had four regular cards that I needed: Bill Guerin, Jay Bouwmeester (completes the Panthers set), Robert Lang (completes the Red Wings set) and Ryan Getzlaf.

Pack 12 had a Patrick O'Sullivan GP and four regular cards that I needed: Dany Heatley, Jaro Jagr, Hepatitis Boy and Patrick Sharp.

Of these 12 GP cards, I didn't already have any of them. I've had very good luck with the first half of this break, getting 37 of the 73 cards I was looking for, and only seven cards that I already had.

I imagine from here on out, I won't be as lucky.. I'll be back in a little while with the second half of box one.

Today is card day!

2008-08-07T16:55:00.002-04:00

Today, I received my shipment of 2007-08 Fleer Ultra Hockey cards. Today's shipment consists of two boxes of 24 packs. Each pack consists of five cards.

I am 73 cards short of the complete base set, and maybe 120 shy of completing the Gold Medallion parallel set. After today's box breaks, I hope to be within 10 cards of the base set.

With one Gold Medallion per pack, that cuts the number of cards down to 196. Maybe 40 of those will be some other special insert or parallel. If there are sweater or sig cards (and there should be two out of today's breaks), that won't effect the number of cards. So I've got about 150 or so cards to get the 73 that I need. Honestly, I don't expect to make it.

I know full well that you can buy this complete set on ebay auctions for something like $20, but there's no fun in that. That's a bit like getting a mail-order bride.

I'll break this down into four segments. No video. Just the written word. So far, I don't have any team sets completed. I need Erik Cole, Justin Williams and Mike Commodore to complete the Hurricanes set. I'll be looking mostly for those.

Oddly enough, most of the ones I'm missing from the complete base set are ones that I have already gotten the Gold Parallel.

More later.

A/V club presents: Maurice Richard

2008-08-06T21:39:00.005-04:00

While the Mats Sundin/Joe Sakic drama plays on and the ridiculous circus that is the Brett Favre drama plays itself out, I've been wandering around the YouTubes for some fun stuff. Mostly, I've been watching Huckleberry Hound cartoons. You gotta love that guy. He's got the best intentions but the worst execution. Despite his incompetence, his foolish pursuit of sisyphean tasks and his magnificent failures, he never became flustered and he never quit. It's this "Never give up, never say die" attitude that reminds me of Maurice Richard. I'm going somewhere with this. Trust me. For now, allow me to digress. For his quixotic persistence, Huck is either an idiot or a hero. Or both. One of my favorite episodes was Fireman Huck. It's one of the few times where he looses his zen-like cool, and one of the first times we saw the dog that would become his nemesis. It's also one of the only times that he doesn't botch the words to his favorite song "Oh My Darling Clementine". Check it out.

Anyway, Monday happened to be the birthday of Maurice Richard. He would have been 87. One of the coolest things I've ever seen is this video of a very touching tribute at the Montréal Forum, back in March of 1996. Before the final game in the building, there was a magnificent ceremony honoring the building itself and the great players who played there. No matter how many times I watch any part of it, I'm blown away by the ovation that the crowd gave and the way The Rocket reluctantly but graciously accepted the loving gesture.

Rumor has it that the ovation went on for up to 16 minutes. Clearly, The Rocket was humbled by the whole thing and he probably felt like the luckiest man on the face of the earth. Check out how excited Saku Koivu looks at 1:14 and how dumb Gary Bettman looks at 1:28. Those two couldn't be further apart.

I also stumbled upon this great 1983 commercial for Grecian Formula hair dye, starring Richard.

That "Hey Richard, two minutes for looking so good!" line is a classic.

Everybody's seen the classic cartoon "The Hockey Sweater". Even if you've seen it a million times, it's always worth another view. I just saw this impressive modern adaptation, which ties in Maurice Richard and brings this full circle back to Mats Sundin. Enjoy:

I love how the "pear say queue shun" from the original made it to the remake. And the "one of the defensemen was Bertuzzied" bit had me roaring with laughter.

Thursday will be the 21st birthday of Sidney Crosby. He will finally be able to legally drink beer in Pittsburgh.

Happy birthday to the Rocket (RIP) and to the Kid.

I've got loads of hockey cards arriving via UPS on Thursday. I'll do some box breaks of my quest to complete the 2007-08 Fleer Ultra set.

The forgotten Sutter

2008-08-03T20:17:00.003-04:00

Mike Morreale at NHL.com recently wrote two fine articles about the future of the Carolina Hurricanes. Not surprisingly, there's a lot of emphasis on the Canes 2007 first round Pick Brandon Sutter.

Hurricanes hope help is coming from kids
and
Next generation Sutter aims for NHL

In this second generation of Sutters, Brandon was the third to be drafted into the NHL, but he will be the first to play in the NHL. Barring a really unfortunate series of catastrophic events, he'll be lacing them up in Raleigh this fall and hopefully for a long time to come. For the record, the other two second generation Sutters are:

Shaun (son of Brian), who was a fourth round pick by the Flames in 1998 and is now playing for the Belfast Giants of the British Elite Ice Hockey League.
Brett (son of Darryl), who was a sixth round selection by the Flames in 2005, and is playing with the AHL's Quad City Flames.

There's no need to link to the credentials of each of the first generation Sutters. Only to point out that they played a collective 4994 games, scored a collective 2934 (1320/1614) points and spent 7224 minutes in the box. That's five days to you and me. Between them, they won six Stanley Cups.

We all know their names as Brian, Darryl, Duane, Rich, Brent, Ron, and Gary.

Wait. That's seven. There's only supposed to be six. Gary??? Who is this Gary character?

He's the oldest of the Sutter brothers, and rumored to have been the most gifted of them all, but he never played in the NHL, or really any level of major organized hockey. He turned down an invitation to a tryout with the Red Deer Rustlers, at which Brian earned a spot. One by one, the brothers worked their way through junior hockey and into the NHL, and Gary had few regrets. He certainly never resented his brothers' success. Although Gary denies it, all of his brothers say that the reason he turned down the tryout was that he was very serious with a girl who he would later marry. And divorce. He says that he felt like he wasn't good enough. Everyone else begged to differ, but that's what he says.

I found a fantastic article about Gary Sutter, which appeared in the 2005 issue of The Crow, which is the University of Regina School of Journalism's yearly publication. I highly recommend the story, written by Dan Kinvig, starting on page 14. (this is a pdf file)

The article tells the story behind the story, but also points out that the story doesn't end when Gary found himself remarried, working in a lumber yard and living in a mobile home. Like so many other blue collar workers across the world, Gary entered a lottery ticket pool at work with a bunch of the guys. They won a $10M jackpot, and Gary's cut was $1.5M.

Unlike many people who find themselves in the same spot, Gary didn't quit his job the next day. He continued to work there, despite his newfound riches. That's the "Sutter work ethic". Gary knows, as the other six brothers know, as the Staal brothers know, the value of hard work. The Sutter brothers grew up in a 800-square foot, two bedroom farmhouse in Viking, Alberta. They had no choice but to work on the farm from a very early age. Their father, who passed away in 2005, instilled in them a strong work ethic, which helped six of them have terrific careers as NHLers. We'll never know how good an NHLer Gary would have been.

Young Brandon never had to get up at four in the morning to drive a tractor. He never had to bail hay until the sun went down. He never had to live in a cramped room with three brothers. No, his life has been much easier in that respect. However, the apple rarely falls far from the tree, and in this case he's falling from the (second) best tree in the lot. By anyone's account, Brandon's dad Brent was the best of the six, but maybe not as good as Gary.

So far as we know, there isn't a fifth Staal brother.

horrible looking third?

2008-07-31T23:44:00.003-04:00

Today, the good folks over at Icethetics were able to present some visual representation of the third sweater desriptions given by Toronto Maple Leafs beat writer and pal of Eklund Howard Berger.

Keep in mind that the image you see is only an artist's rendition of a questionable description given by an unreliable source.

If the desription that Berger gave is accurate, and this rendition is a fair rendition of what he saw, I've gotta say that it looks horrible. There's no way in the world that I'm going to shell out a hard earned $200 or so to get one of these. There is nothing good about this rendition. The stars are crap. The white triangle is crap. The traditional logo inside that white triangle is crap. The sleeves look halfway decent, but the rest of it is crap.

I'm hoping that Berger's account was completely wrong, and the forthcoming thirds feature the "storm warning" secondary logo on a black background. No white triangle and no stars.

We won't know for sure until September 21, but I'll tell you right now that I hate the way that rendition looks.

Wild waive their only native son

2008-07-30T01:19:00.004-04:00

On Tuesday, the Wild announced that they were placing right wing Mark Parrish on waivers. If he and his three-year $8.35M salary commitment aren't picked up on Wednesday, he will be bought out. At which point the Kings (or whomever) can get him for much less than the $2.85M he was scheduled to get this season.

I can't pretend to know everything, or really anything about the Wild, but it's a bit sad to see this happen. Parrish is the only native Minnesotan on the team. GM Doug Risebrough said that Parrish was simply a "victim of the salary cap". Based on this story in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and the comments, Parrish was a bit of an enigma for Wild fans. He used to be a good player, but wasn't playing up to his potential. There's a common sentiment that he just wasn't "fitting in" and spent a significant amount of time in coach Jacques Lemaire's doghouse. Fans wanted to like him for a number of reasons. One of them was that he is a native son. However, it just wasn't working out.

I looked around the Wild blogosphere for reactions to this. Sadly, I don't have any of these fine bloggers in the blogroll, but that'll change soon.
Kirsten from Land of Lakes and Hockey, is one of Parrish's biggest fans, and is pretty irritated about the matter. She went the extra mile by cursing Risebrough's name (and Lemaire's) in both English and French.

Fellow Wild blogger Hitting the Post chimes in with a little "Don't drink the kool-aid" action:

As neat as it is to have "one of our own" on the squad, perhaps we should apply a little perspective to their on-ice contributions to-date before we yell ourselves hoarse clamoring for DR to sign another one.

Fair enough, but it's just odd to see a guy go from being the Wild's Captain during the 2007 playoffs and one of the alternating Captains this season to the waiver wire.

There's no way any team picks him off waivers. Instead, he'll become a free agent and will likely end up in the City of Angels. By the way, has anybody told the Kings that it's damn near August? When are they gonna sign anyone?

Checking out the Wild's salary commitments for the 08-09 season, they don't have a whole lot of wiggle room, and they don't have a full roster either. If they feel the need to sign a Minnesotan on the cheap, there's two ~~perfectly good~~, um ...~~good~~, er ... ~~serviceable~~, uh ... available native Minnesotan blueliners who have just left Carolina's fold. If they want Kristy or Snuggles, they're both there for the taking.

Speaking of Snuggles, it's been a full month since we've heard a single word about him and his NHLPA appeal of the Canes buying out his contract. I wonder what's going on there. He's disappeared from the Canes page, and the NHLPA lists him as "unsigned". Has anyone heard anything?

New sweater design leaked???

2008-07-27T22:00:00.005-04:00

Although we won't know for sure until September, our friends at Icethetics have an inside man, and he has a description of all 18 alternate sweaters set to debut this fall. The Hurricanes alternate isn't quite what we were expecting.

Here's what their inside guy says

Carolina Hurricanes
The Hurricanes will introduce a black third jersey, with red and white trim – different than their customary red home uniform with the black and white trim. Each arm will sport red and white angular stripes. The bottom of the jersey will feature a narrow white stripe and a thicker red one. In between, will be 10 white stars. The club’s red logo on the uniform front is placed within a white triangle, presumably to honor the famed Research Triangle that dominates the Raleigh-Durham area.

We were all expecting the alternate logo to appear on the crest and the main logo on the shoulders. This description doesn't indicate whether the "red logo" refers to our traditional crest logo or our alternate "storm warning" logo. Either way, the "white triangle" is a bit unexpected, and the "ten white stars" come out of nowhere.

No pictures are available, although their inside guy says he's seen evidence. Now, to be fair, I should point out that the "inside guy" is one of Eklund's lackeys. Therefore, this shouldn't be trusted just yet.

Here are the details about the other 17 sweaters.

The description of the Sens new third makes it sound an awful lot like the all-star sweaters from last season.

I can't wait to see these. Especially the Hurricanes.

Is hockey Brett Favre's next move?

2008-07-24T18:34:00.005-04:00

By now, even if you're not a football fan, you've heard that Green Bay quarterback Brett Favre won't be back on the frozen tundra next season. Although he's technically retired, he's got two years left on his contract with the Packers. He's hinted at a desire to come out of retirement and he's demanded an unconditional release. There's been a huge soap opera between Favre, the Packers front office and the fans of the other 31 NFL teams, all of whom think that the Mississippi native is coming to play for their team.

Today, there came another rumor about Favre. Well, not really a rumor. More like a harebrained idea. Some folks think that he'll be able to make the transition from "frozen tundra" to "frozen pond". The AHL Iowa Chops (Anaheim's team) have offered the 38-year old a contract, which I'm sure went directly into Favre's agent's trashcan.

Chops' president Steve Nitzel said:

“We can offer him plenty of bone-crushing hits, read-and-react plays, and thousands of fans cheering for him, so what’s not to like about that? All we have to do is sharpen his skating skills and after that, his athletic instincts will take over and he’ll be one heck of a hockey player.”

Yeah.

This is obviously a gimmick. There's no way anyone expects Favre to sign the contract. This is a ploy to drum up ticket sales for the newly renamed team.
When NBA legend Michael Jordan came out of retirement to play minor league baseball for the Chicago White Sox affiliate Birmingham Barons, it was a huge success at the box office, but a disappointment on the field. Jordan obviously has tremendous athletic instincts, and he already had a background in baseball. However, the gap between a standout high school ball player and a Double-A ball player is too broad to fill in with "instincts". The gap between someone who probably has very limited skating skills and an AHL player? Well....

Next week, the ECHL Charlotte Checkers will announce that they are offering Indy car driver Danica Patrick a contract. I kid.

Glove tap to James Mirtle , who had a nice line on this:

Maybe they're looking for someone to quarterback the team's power play.

Groan.

Bomani and the survey

2008-07-23T19:19:00.005-04:00

I didn't really want to get involved in this, but there's not a heck of a lot going on, and Bomani Jones keeps pushing the Caniac Nation's collective buttons, so I'm gonna give my two cents on the recent poll that everyone's talking about. Some "summer fellow" (i.e. intern) with some group called "Public Policy Polling" conducted a telephone survey which yielded some results that are getting some snickers from some folks. This poll "found" that 18% of the 500 respondents were unaware of the Hurricanes existence. Six percent of the respondents from within the 919 (Raleigh, etc.) area code didn't know about them.

The complete "findings" are available here in pdf format. What it shows is that 500 people were polled. How these people were selected isn't known. All that's known is that there was an automated questionnaire. "Is this a scientific poll? Press one for 'no', two for 'yes' or three for 'I like Fig Newtons!'"

That, in itself, makes the whole thing suspect to me. First and foremost, though, is that the entire sample size was 500, and that was meant to be representative of North Carolina as a whole. North Carolina has 8.9 million people. 500 represents less than one one hundredth of one percent. That's not a good sample size.

I might contact the guy who did the survey just to find out what his methods were? How many people declined to participate? Where did they get the pool? Seriously, they couldn't have possibly cold called people during the dinner hour. Could they? Did the results take into account for people who just pressed buttons quickly to make the survey end? Where were the dummy questions to determine whether people were paying attention? Why did the survey assume that the respondents cared about sports at all? Every one of the 15 or so questions had to do with sports.

Anyway, Bomani Jones has taken this and run with it. He's a local radio journalist who has a history of taking potshots at the Canes, most notably a piece that appeared on ESPN Page 2During the 2006 Stanley Cup playoffs. Jones asked two of his buddies if they liked the Canes. They said no. He used this sample size of two to postulate that nobody in North Carolina cared about the Canes. Then he went to a couple of bars in Durham and reported that he couldn't find a single Canes fan. Jones, who is black, lamely threw out the race card.

you've probably heard that Durham has a lot of black people. And as you might expect, hockey's not really their bag.

Lame. And from that point on, it doesn't matter because he's revealed his bias.

He decided that he'd be fair about it and go to Raleigh. Instead of going to known Hurricanes hot spots (all Carolina Ale House locations), he went to some "family establishment", then to an NC State bar (remember, school wasn't in session, so the place was dead anyway). He proudly proclaimed that he still couldn't find any Caniacs.

My favorite bit is when he simply made stuff up. After naming every other place he went to and every person he talked to, he said that he went to a bar in Raleigh where the manager insisted that he and the establishment remain anonymous. He described it as a ghost town. Yeah, that's great. If there were zero customers in there anyway, what difference does it make that zero out of zero were Hurricanes fans. Try going to a busy place.

I can make stuff up, too. Watch this:

People in Dallas don't care about the Cowboys. It's true. Some guy I met in an airport said so.

Awesome.

Anyway, Bomani, who writes for 850 the Blog, proudly pointed to that PPP survey and in a blog post said, essentially, See! I told y'all crazy crackers. Nobody cares!. He thinks that all of us are "missing the point", and when readers took him to task, asking "okay, what is the point, sir?", he refused to answer. He pledged to go on the radio and answer calls about this hullabaloo. That was supposed to happen today, but he decided to postpone, citing some "We need to make sure it runs smoothly, and now isn't the time for this" excuse. The real reason is that he realized that he didn't have a point.

Miller signing has major implications in Carolina

2008-07-19T14:27:00.005-04:00

On Friday, the Sabres announced that they have signed goaltender Ryan Miller to a five-year contract extension for a total of $31.25M. His current contract runs through this season, and he will make $3.5M. When the new contract begins, he will make $6.25M for each of the next five seasons. Crunchy is also an internationally renowned master of the pan flute, an accomplished amateur photographer, and has twice hiked the entire 2174-mile Appalachian Trail. Only one of those things is true.

This means a lot to the Carolina Hurricanes. In the summer of 2007, Carolina netminder Cam Ward was given a three-year deal that was EXACTLY the same as the three-year deal that Ryan Miller had been given by Buffalo. Cam Ward's contract runs through 09-10, and it seems likely that they will have no choice but to continue to use Cruchy's contract as a template. Barring a complete disaster, massive injury, or a late meteoric rise by Michael Leighton, Cam Ward will need to be pegged as the franchise goalie. Truth told, he's already been pegged as such. It's becoming more and more obvious that a franchise goalie is gonna have to get paid Kiprusoff money even if he can't carry a Brodeurian load.

The summer of 09 will present a much bigger challenge: Eric Staal. Hopefully, Jim Rutherford will break the silly franchise rule of not extending contracts until the final weeks before expiration. There is no doubt about the fact that Eric Staal is the face of this franchise, the captain-in-waiting. Hopefully he will be a Hurricane for life. Hopefully, they will get something worked out sooner than later so we don't have to fret about it next summer.

The big question, which is a bridge we're gonna have to burn when we get to it, is "at what cost Ward?". Assume that Staal gets a raise into the neighborhood of $6.5M. If Wardo is given the same contract and Tim Gleason and Joni Pitkanen's massive blueline contracts are taken into account, something's gonna have to give. "New, more fiscally responsible NHL"? What?

Three summers in a row since I've been paying close attention, Darcy Regier has let players walk away or slip through the cracks. This time, he did the right thing. He did the right thing by locking down their franchise goaltender, and it's a bit of a surprise. A surprise that Regier worked something out, and a surprise that the contract is as long as it is.

The only trouble is, Regier's play will force Carolina into a tough spot in the summer of 2010 when they need to re-ink Ward.

Out with Scorpions, in with AC/DC

2008-07-19T12:03:00.002-04:00

Finally, on Friday we got some semi-official word about the third sweaters that have been speculated upon for the last two years. Luke Decock spoke with Jim Rutherford on the matter, and JR has indicated that the third sweaters could be worn as early as October 13, against the defending Stanley Cup champion Red Wings.

Everyone has speculated for years now that the third sweater will be black and will flip-flop the primary and secondary logo. Rutherford declined to comment to Luke about that, but it seems like one of only two options. The other being a diagonal wordmark "CAROLINA", similar to the one the Rangers wear, or the Penguins used to wear on the Avalanche used to wear as thirds. The picture above is from a concept gallery at NHL Tournament of Logos, (which has since migrated to the new website, Icethetics). It's not dramatic, but it's the one that most of us have imagined ever since we first started dreaming about a third sweater.

In Luke's article, Rutherford indicated that the team hopes to unveil them at the Caniac Carnival in September, but they won't interfere with the pageantry of opening night. They'll wait a little while, but it sounds like he's pretty set on debuting them on October 13.

Having obtained NHL approval for the alternate jersey, Rutherford said they could be seen on the ice as soon as the Detroit game, when owner Peter Karmanos figures to be in the stands. League guidelines encourage teams to use the alternate jerseys no more than 10 times per season.

"We wouldn't wear it opening night," Rutherford said. "Our jerseys as they are now are really nice jerseys in red and they're really popular. ... It could be [Detroit]. It won't be opening night, but after that sooner rather than later, probably. We haven't made that decision."

"Rock You Like a Hurricane" by the German hair band Scorpions, has been the Hurricanes semi-official theme song since day one. Except for the 2005-06 playoffs, it has been played as the players hit the ice and during the starting lineups. It will almost certainly be supplanted by the over-used in sport "Back in Black" by AC/DC.

Like Dave over at Carolina on Ice, I can't wait to snap one up. Every day at work, I get a few free dollars. Literally a few. Never more than six; never less than two. Instead of passing this money through my liver and kidneys, I've been quietly squirreling it away. Three dollars here and five dollars there doesn't sound like a lot, but in just two months, I've stashed away $192 of free money that would otherwise go to beer. That's my sweater money. If I have to buy an authentic, I'm about two-thirds of the way there. If they produce replicas of the third, I'm already there. Since I'm already squirreling the money away, I'll just keep doing it, and call it parking and gas money.

According to the same article, as many as 18 NHL teams will have alternate sweaters this season. Last year, with the rollout of the "RBK system", no team had an alternate. This will be the first time the Hurricanes have had an alternate sweater, leaving Detroit and New Jersey as the last teams standing to have never had one.

Fun with Justin Williams

2008-07-19T10:44:00.004-04:00

Yesterday, after a long day at work, I went out with the intention of buying one of those cheap box o' hockey cards. Instead, I bought one of the slightly more expensive boxes with 12 packs of 2007-08 Fleer Ultra cards. Out of all the cards I've been getting in the box o' cards, I like the Fleer Ultra the best. I think they're good looking cards for the collector without a ton of money. Also, the bonus inserts, like the gold medallion parallel set and the rookie set are very cool for such a reasonably priced card.
As I opened the box and felt each of the packs, I noticed that one was considerably thicker than the others. That's a good indicator that there's a special card, like an autograph card or a jersey or stick card. I saved it for last. Out of the other 11 packs, there were a couple of pretty cool limited run cards, including a Sidney Crosby "Difference Maker" card that might be worth as much as $12, and a Michael Nylander gold medallion parallel card that, for some reason, could be worth $10. Right there, if I were into card dealing, the box has paid for itself. I had no idea how completely awesome the special card in that last pack would be.

If you know me, you know that Justin "Viva" Williams is my favorite player on my favorite team. So you can imagine how excited I was when I got this:

I'm really new to card collecting. When I bought baseball and football cards as a kid, I wasn't really "collecting" them. I had no idea about things like "complete sets" and "rookie cards". Of course, that was in the '70s, before card collecting became the beast that it is now. The point is, I'm really excited about that card, and it couldn't have been more perfect. For me.

Also, since we're already on the Justin Williams topic, allow me to share this video that I've wanted to share for some time. It's from the "ask the Canes" in-game feature from the last home game last season. Watch how quickly Viva answers "What's your favorite section?" with "Section 112", as if to say "Of course it's 112. Why would it be anything else?" 112 is, of course, where I have sat since 2002. All the more reason to love 112. As if the bar within the section wasn't enough.

Happy birthday to RBH (and Japers' Rink, and Casonblog)

2008-07-17T19:06:00.005-04:00

I nearly forgot all about it, but today is the third birthday of Red and Black Hockey.

Japers' Rink just turned three this week, and BFLOblog will be turning three in September. Oddly, the only reason I remembered was a post that Kevin made at BFLOblog, congratulating JP on three years in the blogosphere. Let me be the second, or fortieth or whatever, to also congratulate JP, even if it is a few days late.

As Kevin said, there was a batch of us who started blogging at the tail end of the lockout, and for some reason, those are the ones we feel more connected with. Obviously, I'm more connected with other Canes bloggers, which allows me to also congratulate Scott Cason on the third birthday of CasonBlog, which was just two days ago. I'm sure there are others whom I've forgotten to congratulate on their third birthday, but seeing as how I nearly forgot my own....

It's been mostly fun. I've gone through periods of taking this blog über-seriously. I've gone through periods when I wanted to give the whole thing up. I've gone thorough some personal highs and lows whilst writing this blog. On that day three years ago when the "new NHL", and this blog were born, I never imagined that I would ever have any readers. To my surprise, people keep coming back. Some of them by choice. I'm no James Mirtle, but it's really cool that anyone at all reads this.

My favorite blog-related moment was when I was on tee-vee with my horrible beard during game 7 of the 2006 ECF. People who read this blog recognized me just in that brief three or four seconds I was on screen, and I got a few emails and messages from complete strangers because of it.

Thanks again to the people who keep checking in here.

I raise my glass not only to myself, but to JP, Cason, and all the others who started blogging hockey back in July of 2005.

Schedule released.

2008-07-17T17:25:00.003-04:00

The NHL released the schedules this afternoon. They've gone back to the "balanced" schedule wherein everybody plays everybody at least once and there are fewer intra-division games. As usual, there are a few quirks, and I'll try to cover many of them in this post.

The Western Conference teams that Carolina will play at home are:
Detroit on October 13, Erik Cole and the Oilers on November 1, Phoenix on November 21, Nashville on November 23, Anaheim on November 30, St. Louis on January 2, Columbus on Valentine's Day, Colorado on February 22 and Cal-Gary on March 6.

The Western Conference teams that Carolina will play on the road are:
Los Angeles on October 17, Anaheim on October 19, St. Louis on November 30, Minnesota on December 23, Vancouver on February 3, San Jose on February 5, Phoenix on February 7, Chicago on March 11, and Dallas on March 14.

The schedule features 14 back-to-back games. Five start at home, three start on the road, three are back-to-back road games, and three are back-to-back home games.

There are just two home-and-home consecutive games against the same opponent. Both are in November.

Unlike the past three seasons, the final month is not division-heavy. In fact, Carolina's final seven games are out-of division. Five of the last six are against Atlantic Division opponents.

Carolina will face the Flyers four times in a sixteen day span between November 26 and December 11, and the two teams will be done with each other.

As is usual, Carolina will go on an extended road trip early in the season due to the North Carolina State Fair. This season, that trip will be six games. There will also be a string of games in January where seven out of eight games between the 8th and 27th are on the road. In addition to the six game trip, there will be two four-game trips and three three-game trips.

Carolina's longest home-stand will be four games, and that will happen three times.

The traditional New Year's Eve home game will be against Atlanta.

Matinees are the thing. Carolina has traditionally had just one matinee home game, but there will be seven this year. Six of those will be 3:00 Sunday games. Four of those will be in November.

The Hurricanes will first face the Islanders on October 25, but not again until February 19.

The date of "Glen Wesley night" hasn't been announced, nor have any of the mini-season ticket packages. Even if it doesn't work out for whichever package I choose, count me in for opening night, Edmonton, and "Glen Wesley night".

Canes to open at home

2008-07-17T08:29:00.002-04:00

The full schedules are expected to be announced today, but Hurricanes fans learned yesterday that they will open the season at home against the Panthers on Friday October 10. They also learned that the three "wildcard" teams from the West whom the Canes will play twice will be Phoenix, Anaheim and St. Louis.

This is the third consecutive time the Canes have opened the season at home, and the first time that it will be a divisional opponent.

Carolina fans may remember that FSN South signed a deal with the Hurricanes, pledging to broadcast 65 games this coming season, up from 60 in 2007-08. They also have pledged to broadcast "at least 70" Charlotte Bobcats NBA games. I did some research and discovered that last season, the two teams had simultaneous games 34 times, and each team had 44 nights when they were the only one playing. There were an additional four times where one team played early and one team played late. Supposing the common dates were split down the middle, that gave each team 61 broadcastable games. Including the "doubleheaders", there could have been 65 games for each team. All of this is, of course, using last year's schedules as a template. In any event, it doesn't seem possible for one channel to commit to as many games as they're committed to.

I've written to FSN South, asking them how they plan to honor both commitments when the schedules probably won't accomodate 135 different broadcastable games. I haven't received an answer.

The NHL also "officially" announced that the Winter Classic '09 will indeed be in Wrigley Field on New Year's Day between the Red Wings and Blackhawks. This came as news to nobody. I think there's some people who are holding out hope for a Winter Classic in Raleigh. It isn't gonna happen in our lifetimes, and if it does, I'll gladly eat crow.

The full 2008-09 schedules will be released at some point today.

O'Neill possibly making a comeback

2008-07-15T22:56:00.003-04:00

I just got word via Dave from COI about the possibility that Jeff O'Neill will be donning the old #92 sweater in Carolina again. Luke has most of the details in his post over at LSB, but the gist of it is that they're looking to get some "organizational depth". Apparently, the Matt Cullen situation is still kinda shaky, and the Canes need to have an NHL-calibre center under two-way contract for emergency fill in.

Luke:

"Yes, that Jeff O'Neill.

The Canes have talked to O'Neill and Jeff Taffe, Rutherford said, but both are holding out for one-way contracts. "

Um.

Yeah.... No.

Jeff O'Neill was a good player for a few years, and he is the franchise's leading goal scorer since the team moved to Carolina. For the record, O'Neill scored 176 for Carolina. Rod Brind'Amour has scored 149 for Carolina, and Eric Staal has scored all of his 124 for Carolina. Brindy should pass that mark this coming season, and Staal should pass it early in the 2009-10 season.

Jeff O'Neill is not remembered for his 41-goal season in 2000-01. He is not remembered for his other accomplishments, which put him near the top of every franchise statistical category.

Jeff O'Neill is remembered around here for very different reasons. He had a legendary row with former Hurricanes coach Chairman Mo following a bag skate. He had a couple of run-ins with John Law, including his arrest for DUI and public urination during the lockout.

O'Neill scored 60 or more points four straight seasons, but in 03-04, he stopped caring. He was lazy and sloppy on the ice. By the end of the season, he had fallen from fan favorite to pariah, often drawing boos for his listless play. I have never apologised for the way I felt about him.

After the underachieving 34 point season in 03-04 came the lockout. Instead of staying in shape and doing something good, he sat around with Bates Battaglia and got liquored up. I don't know for sure that O'Neill and Batesy were hanging out, but Bates has the reputation of being a party boy, and I'll make that assumption whether it's fair and accurate or not.

The DUI arrest was O'Neill's second. His shoddy play was enough to make him fall from grace, but the DUI was the last straw for many fans. After the Steve Chiasson incident, this organization is really sensitive about drunk driving.

The fight with Maurice, the lazy play, and finally the DUI pretty much secured O'Neill's walking papers. Then, in June of 2005, O'Neill's brother was killed in a single-car accident near Toronto when he fell asleep at the wheel. There was no suspicion of drugs or alcohol. Only fatigue.

Donny's untimely passing provided an excellent opportunity for the Canes to "trade" O'Neill to the Leafs. That was exactly what Jeff wanted and needed.

O'Neill had 38 points for the Leafs in 2005-06 and 42 in 06-07. Oddly enough, he ended up back with coach Paul Maurice, and the two let bygones be bygones. Although these numbers aren't quite up to what he's capable of, he was getting back on the right track. Until...

O'Neill didn't play at all in 2007-08. Not professionally, anyway. He played in a Thursday night beer league. For some reason, he thinks that he can go from once a night in a 30-and up league to a one-way NHL contract. Jim Rutherford has made his intentions quite clear.

"He's trying to work his way back but with him sitting out a year, his opportunity would be on a two-way contract, probably starting in Albany," Rutherford said. "Maybe even at center ice. He played there in junior. At this time, we're experimenting with a few things. Based on his career he feels the same way (as Taffe) — he would like one-way contract somewhere. If he can't we're willing to talk with him."

There are loads of other unrestricted free agents who could be signed to two-way deals. I'm not sure why O'Neill is being considered.

Seriously, I'd rather have Pavel Krispy Brendl. Speaking of whom, it looks like he's been doing okay in the Swedish Elite League.

I'm sure that when the dust settles, O'Neill won't have a contract with Carolina, but it gives us something to talk about.

off topic - music ... Los Campesinos!

2008-07-14T22:06:00.004-04:00

Once again, I'm forced to bring non-hockey into this blog. I mean, I could write about how the Bolts have signed The Horseman to a life-long contract ala Rick DiPietro. I could write about the drama surrounding Brian Burke and Kevin Lowe. I could write about the drama with "Boots" Del Baggio. I could even write about the Carolina Hurricanes prospects camp that just happened. I won't. Today, I'm gonna go on about music. More specifically, I'm gonna go on about a particular music video.

I've become a sucker for anything that's on the Arts & Crafts music label. Canadian indie pop. Most of it's Canadian, anyway. One of the non-Canadian bands, Los Campesinos! are Welsh, and they are the very epitome of "twee-pop" that was so popular in Olympia, Washington back in the mid-late nineties. They have a new album, and a video promoting one of the songs. I'm sharing it here today, just like I did on my other blog because I can't get the damn song out of my head. I hope that I can get it to infect at least a couple of you.
I'm sharing it here also because even if you don't like the song, you might at least appreciate the uncanny resemblance of Ollie Campesinos (the guy wearing the green t-shirt) to a younger Eric Staal. Say the 2003 Eric Staal.
Anyway, enjoy the video. My Year in Lists by Los Campesinos!:

Incidentally, I think that Aleksandra Campesinos (the waifish redhead) is pretty hot.

Weird hockey card #3 -- Tuomo Ruutu

2008-07-12T12:31:00.007-04:00

In what may or may not be a summer-long series, I've got another weird hockey card to share. I'm still buying these box o' card sets for $10, which is well worth it for the entertainment value alone. Most of the time, I'll get at least one that I think makes the expense worth it. I'm also getting pretty close to collecting the entire 262 card set of Bowman 1990-91 cards.

I was disappointed in this latest set when I didn't get anything that made me go "ooooooh". However, the closer I looked at the cards, I found one that at least made me chuckle. I present the Tuomo Ruutu card from the 2004-05 Upper Deck "Victory" set. Card #44, if you're scoring along at home.

Just a normal card, right? I don't own a scanner, and I'm not skilled enough to get a crystal-clear photo of the card, but if you look closer, you'll see why this card is weird.

Yes. That's right. "They could not have been more happier..." They also could not have been more grammatically incorrect. More excited? Sure. More impressed? Sure. Happier? Sure. More happier? No.

Speaking of Ruutu, here's a great video from the YouTubes. These little kids are great.

Demitra signs with Vancouver

2008-07-10T13:23:00.004-04:00

Everyone's favorite Slovak -- Pavol Demitra -- signed with the Canucks today. No details are available just yet.

Okay, so he's not everyone's favorite Slovak. He's just Jes Golbez' favorite Slovak. Anyone who's ever read Golbez' blog knows that he's a huge Pavol Demitra fan.

Looking at his posts with "Pavol Demitra" tags, you'll see things like

...our master, lord, and saviour, Pavol Demitra...

Pavol Demitra is awesome at many things: passing, shooting, stick-handling, skating, fashion, and Sudoku.

November 29, 1974 is one of the most important dates in world history. Why? Because, in a little village in Northern Slovakia, Pavol Demitra, your lord and master, was born.

This is one of those great moments when everything falls into place. Demitra has been Golbez' favorite player for a while. The Canucks have been his favorite team. Finally, the two have met.

And there was much rejoicing in Vancouver.

Demitra won't be able to fill the void left by the eternal Canuck captain, Markus Naslund, but he'll be a welcome addition.

Now that Trevor Linden and Markus Naslund are gone, I'm not sure if Demitra will slide right into the captaincy. He wore the C in Minnesota, and he might be a good candidate, but maybe the Sedins will be co-Captain. I don't have my finger on the pulse of the Canucks, and for all I know, they've already made a choice.

The hockey world still awaits news on Mats Sundin, and the Caniac world still awaits news on trading F. Kaberle to Tampa or Ottawa or Los Angeles or Chicago or Atlanta or anywhere.

Sharpie signs the dotted line

2008-07-09T16:35:00.002-04:00

On Wednesday, the Hurricanes announced that they have finally come to terms on a one-year deal with winger Chad LaRose. The 26-year old Michigander will make $875k in 2008-09.

LaRose, who had NHL-career highs in goals (11), assists (12) and points (23) last season, earned $500k while playing out his first one-way contract. Previously, the undrafted player had been signed to two-way deals.

The signing means that the Hurricanes have avoided arbitration with LaRose. The Canes haven't had an arbitration hearing since Jeff O'Neill was awarded $1.5M in 2000.

This is good news, but it puts the Canes about 4M over their budget. After Kaberle and his $2.2M get moved out, they'll be close enough.

off topic - movies ..... Vertigo

2008-07-09T15:46:00.004-04:00

The summer of boredom continues. The Lighting continue to sign everyone who ever played on the Penguins forward lines, and they still don't have defense. October is a long way away, so I'm gonna spend my summer watching lots and lots of movies. The netflix cue should be hopping, and I think I'm gonna spend a small fortune just going to see classic films.

The historic Carolina Theatre of Greensboro is just around the corner from my house, and they always show classic films on Tuesdays. Every summer, they kick the classic films into high gear, doing them most every night. Tonight, they're showing one of my all-time favorites, Vertigo.
Vertigo is by far my favorite Hitchcock film, and it usually sits in my "top five all-time"

As usual, Jimmy Stewart is perfect, and the stunning Kim Novak is amazing. Let's be honest, though. It doesn't matter how good or bad her acting is. She's just simply there, and she's beautiful. One of my favorite things, though, is the very underrated performance by Barbara Bel Geddes as Scotty's (Stewart) gal-pal Midge. I've probably seen this movie 20 times, and I never tire of it.

Next Wednesday, the Hitchcock series continues with The Man Who Knew Too Much. I've never seen it, and I doubt I'll go this time. In two weeks, The Birds, with Tippy "Poor Man's Kim Novak" Hedren. I liked it a lot the first time I saw it, but not so much on subsequent viewings.

Among others in the summer Hitchcock series : Rebecca, Rear Window.

Among other classic films being shown that are worth mentioning: This is Spinal Tap, Princess Bride, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, Evil Dead, Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

I'm pretty excited about the lineup, and there's about 10 others that I didn't mention, but I'll probably go see most or all of these. Of course I own most of these on DVD, and it isn't as if they own film prints of these movies. They're just projecting the DVD version on the huge screen. Still, I'm gonna go. Y'know. Support the arts. The theatre is non-profit; it uses ticket sales to fund building renovation and upkeep. It's a beautiful 1920's theatre complete with balconies, private boxes, massive staircases, marble pillars, statues and all the other glorious fixtures that you would expect from that era. Oh. And a high-quality up-to-date sound system.

As the summer wears on, I'll have more off-topic posts. Hopefully Frantisek Kaberle will get traded so I'll have something hockey-related to write about.

Seidenberg re-signs, Kaberle becoming more expendable

2008-07-07T14:56:00.002-04:00

On Monday, the Hurricanes re-signed defenseman Dennis Seidenberg to a one-year deal valued at $1.2M. This is almost half again what he made last season.
The 26-year old German was hit hard with injuries, and appeared in only 47 games, but he still managed to have a career best 15 (0/15) points. His average ice time of 18:50 per game was second on the team among defensemen.

Seidenberg has never played more than 63 games in an NHL season, and his health is a bit of a concern. He plays an unspectacular but fairly consistent game, and we're glad to have him re-inked.

Despite the retiring of Glen Wesley and the moving on of Bret Hedican, Carolina has gone on a blueline signing frenzy. Now, they simply have too many defensemen. I've said before and I'll say again that Frantisek "Cup Winning goal scorer" Kaberle has got to be the odd man out. He just doesn't fit in with the "younger, bigger, more physical" look that the Canes are trying to give their back end. They need to trade him and his $2.2M for anything they can get out of it. Preferably a depth forward, but anything at all in return will be fine.

Frankie's days are definitely numbered. If you were to make me guess, I'd say that he'll be out of here by the end of next week. I know there are at least two teams out there who are in dire need of defensemen, so I imagine JR will be on the phone with Ottawa and Tampa among others.

Sharpie files for arbitration

2008-07-06T16:58:00.004-04:00

On Saturday, Carolina forward Chad "Sharpie" LaRose notified the Hurricanes and the NHLPA that he has elected to take the team to an arbitration hearing. He is one of 15 NHL players to do so, and the only Hurricane.

LaRose, who was undrafted, but played junior hockey in the Compuware system, earned $500k last season. He was given loads of ice time due to a plethora of injuries and was slotted as high as second line. He posted a career high 23 (11/12) points in 58 games played. In a crucial late season game, he posted his first career hat trick in a 6-2 win over the Lightning.

Sharpie was given a standard qualifying sheet, but the RFA has yet to accept it. Jim Rutherford has indicated that negotiations with him are "going nowhere".

In his three years with the Hurricanes, LaRose has built somewhat of a cult following due to his hard work on and off the ice. He has given this team everything that he has. When he wasn't getting any, he never once complained about ice time. Instead, he worked harder than almost anybody in practice. He was an excellent fourth liner, and when things got difficult due to injuries and illness, the hard-working midget was rewarded with an increased role.

Carolina is nowhere near the salary cap, but they are already a smidgen above their own budget. That said, even if LaRose "wins" his arbitration hearing, it should be for less than a million dollars, and the Canes should definitely accept the ruling.

I've am the proud owner of Chad LaRose's page at hockey-reference.com, so it goes without saying that I would be upset if things don't get worked out.

Tidying up, part III

2008-07-03T01:53:00.002-04:00

Okay, so I got bored and decided to mess around with a new template. I wish the changeover could have been fully automatic, but unfortunately, it involved a lot of cutting and pasting and manual entry of stuff from the old place to the new place.
I hope that this site will be easier on the eyes, more functional, and will look decent in any browser. I know that the old place had issues for those who have a wide sidebar or those who use Internet Explorer. The new place should look fine with any of those.

Some of the stuff got left behind, and some of the links still need to be added, but eventually, I'll get it all over here. Please bear with me in the meantime.

Canes sign Pitkänen, Melichar

2008-07-02T20:23:00.004-04:00

On Wednesday, the Hurricanes made two signings. One fully expected, and the other a bit of a surprise.

The first of the signings was the surprise. Jim Rutherford went way off the rumor charts by signing former Penguin Josef Melichar. The rumors about him were that he was going to return to the Pens after spending last season in Czech and Swedish leagues. He spent his entire six-year NHL career in Pittsburgh, where he tallied 40 (7/33) points in 310 games. The 29-year old Czech was signed to a one-year deal at $1M. When Rutherford flat out said that he was gonna get another defenseman to get bigger and younger, then get rid of one of the existing ones, everyone pretty much assumed he was really saying "Frantisek Kaberle, pack your bags". I'm not sure what the Canes would be able to get for the guy who scored the Cup-winning goal in 2006, but I'm guessing they'll get a prospect and a second round pick.

Frankie has been so frustrating to watch. He can't seem to put two good games back to back. Most nights, he can't even put two good shifts back to back. He's been having lingering problems from the multitude of surgeries he's had, and at 34, he's just not getting any younger. I'd say his days are over in Carolina.

The second was the big one. Joni Pitkänen was signed to a three-year $12M deal. The money is a bit more than I was hoping, but the length is more than I was expecting. For the most part, I've been hearing good things about him and his skill set. The question marks are on his health. From a Carolina standpoint, his health can't possibly be dodgier than that of Bret Hedican or Frantisek Kaberle. And he can't possibly be worse defensively than those two. And he definitely will provide more back-end offensive production than those two combined.

Frankie and his $2.2M have got to go. If the Canes can get a depth forward out of it, hooray! Otherwise, shed the salary and stock up on draft picks. I'll always have the fond memory of Frankie scoring the Cup-winner on June 19, 2006 -- just a few feet in front of my face, but this team desperately needed a massive overhaul of the defense. It started with the brilliant Commy/Stillman for Corvo/Eaves trade last winter. These two signings pretty much finish that off. I still think Kaberle is a swell guy, but I also think that both the team and Kaberle would be better served if he was traded.

The few of us who stand behind the team on this Cole/Pitkänen deal have been getting railed by the many who hate it. Make no mistake, I will miss Cole. He will continue to be one of my favorite players; he'll just be wearing a different sweater. I understand and appreciate what he did for this team. I understand it as much or more than the next guy. I'm not saying "Good riddance, jerk!" None of us is saying that. It's business. The Sliding Pokecheck put it quite nicely in her post:

"The Hurricanes had a lot of good forwards and desperately needed to trade for a defenseman. Cole was the only one the team could afford to lose WHO WOULD ALSO get the team something of value in return. Someone had to go and Cole was a valuable trade option. There you go. It's business, folks. Much as you might get attached to certain players and want to keep them around for their entire career, it's not about you - it's about trying to put together a winning team."

Carolina didn't miss the playoffs last season because they weren't scoring enough goals. They had plenty of offense. They narrowly missed the playoffs chiefly because their defense sucked. This will probably be a blog post of its own sometime in the near future. The chief goal this summer was to rehaul the defense even if it meant losing a star player. Feelings have been hurt, but that mission has been accomplished. The defense has been rehauled. Will it pay dividends? I think so, but we'll have to wait and see.

If Pitkänen stinks up the joint, I'll gladly eat crow. For now, I'm totally behind this.

As an aside, the Hurricanes website lists Melichar with the sweater #2. Obviously, that won't be his number. Since the Hurricanes are retiring that number for Glen Wesley, Melichar will be asked to pick something else. Pitkänen is shown with the #25, which will be just fine. I just hope he can be better in that sweater than Bruno St. Jacques and Eric Belanger were.

Ruutu, Pitkänen reunite

2008-07-01T17:18:00.004-04:00

I just listened to Jimmy Rutherford's press conference. Most of the questions had to do with Joni Pitkänen. How Cole took the news of the trade, how far along in the negotiations they are, how Pitkänen took the news, etc. One of the things that was revealed is that Tuomu Ruutu and Joni Pitkänen are terrific friends, aside from merely being countrymen.

Their friendship should make the transition easier.

As an aside, I also found out in my research that fellow Finn and former Hurricane Sami Kapinen taught Pitkänen to speak English while they were both in Philly. That's pretty cool.

Anyway, imagine that Pitkänen is Turk and Ruutu is JD, and enjoy this scene from Scrubs:

Some reaction to the trade

2008-07-01T14:04:00.003-04:00

Edmonton has been pretty busy, orchestrating three significant trades over the last three days. Carolina has pulled off the trade that they were rumored to have been attempting for some time now. In December or January, this Cole-for-Pitkanen rumor started to gain some steam. Even last June, there was an effort to trade Nic ("No Trade Clause") Wallin for Pitkanen.

As expected, the reaction around the Canes blogosphere has been disappointment. Not disappointment that the Canes are getting Pitkanen, but disappointment that the Canes are losing one of their longest tenured players. People are reserving comment for now, but it's clear that they're not exactly thrilled.

Out in Oil country, Covered in Oil isn't exactly thrilled about losing Pitkanen, but sees that Cole will fit in well there.

"Erik Cole is a more consistent, better version of Torres, albeit a version who also broke his neck a little while back and has only scored 30 goals once in his career. That said, he might be a nice fit on a top line, a shooter for Hemsky and Horcoff.Obviously, though, I'm not happy to see Joni Pitkänen go, and I expect him to promptly become a 50+ point defenceman for the next 10 years or so."

In my brief, early scouring of the Oilogosphere, that's pretty much the consensus. They think they've given up a lot, but they're getting a lot in return. The difference is that Joni Pitkanen wasn't one of the faces of the franchise, as Erik Cole was here in Carolina. I'm hoping that after my peers take time to think about it before they rant. I'm hoping that they realize that Carolina is getting a good, young, big, puck-moving defenseman with loads of potential.

What I'm really hoping is that they can get him to sign a multi-year deal for roughly $2.75/year. As I've said, I'm sad about seeing Cole go, but I'm pretty excited about the potential that Pitkanen has.

Bayda, Brookbank, Conboy signed

2008-07-01T13:32:00.002-04:00

Before Carolina took care of their major business on Tuesday, they re-signed three players. Winger Ryan Bayda and defenseman/winger/tough guy Wade Brookbank were both signed to one-way NHL contracts. Also, defenseman Tim "We got us a great big" Conboy was signed to a two-way deal.

Bayda and Brookbank were signed to identical contracts. One year at $475k. Conboy's is a two-year deal that will pay $475k at the NHL level or $100k at Albany.

The Canes now have 11 forwards signed to NHL deals and five defensemen.

Here's how things look:

Ray Whitney / Eric Staal / Justin Williams
Sergei Samsonov / Rod Brind'Amour / Scott Walker
Tuomo Ruutu / Matt Cullen / Patrick Eaves
Wade Brookbank / Chad LaRose* (Trevor Letowski*) / Ryan Bayda

Tim Gleason / Joe Corvo
Nic Wallin / Joni Pitkanen*
Frantisek Kaberle / Anton Babchuk (Dennis Seidenberg*)

Cam Ward
Michael Leighton

Pitkanen hasn't signed anything yet, and LaRose is a free agent.

I don't think the Canes will be making any moves in the market other than to re-sign their own RFAs. Look for Dennis Seidenberg and Trevor Letowski. They may end up elseshere.

More later.

Canes re-acquire Babchuk, trade away Cole

2008-07-01T12:59:00.003-04:00

On the first day of free agency, Carolina has done two things so far that are not at all surprising.
First, they reacquired defenseman Anton "Yentl" Babchuk. He's been signed to a one year deal for one million dollars.

Second, they traded winger Erik Cole to the Edmonton Oilers for the rights to RFA defenseman Yoni Pitkanen. Carolina desperately needed to make this kind of trade, and it's been rumored to have been in the works since at least December.

Erik Cole will be missed around here. This is one of the first times that a key player has been traded from the Hurricanes. Other teams know how to deal with these things, but Hurricanes fans, and especially the Johnny-come-lately ones, will have a very hard time dealing with it.

What Carolina will miss will be Cole's speed and creativity. His questionable health and his reputation as a diver will be going with him as well. He will do well for Edmonton, and the fans will enjoy having him. He has one more year on his contract, and will make $4M.

Carolina will be getting a puck-moving young defenseman that they need. He's just 24 years old, and is a pretty big guy at 6'3" 210lbs. He had a bit of a letdown last season, totaling 26 (8/18) points in 63 games. Prior to that, he was a consistent 40-point producer on the Flyers back end.

Pitkanen made $2.4M last season, and is technically a RFA. Other teams are free to make offers on him. Based on that salary, the Hurricanes would be entitled to a second round draft pick if some other team steals him away. I'm pretty sure that they wouldn't have made this trade unless they were 100% positive that they could get him signed right away.

I'm sad to see Cole go, but I'm excited to have a younger, bigger, puck-moving guy joining the blue line. I'm not crazy about Babchuk (and I think that's an overpayment), but at the very least, Carolina has finally shored up the defense. Assuming Pitkanen gets signed for less than $3M, they'll have saved money.

Of course this leaves a hole in the forward lines. A big hole. Now they have just nine forwards under contract. I assume that Chad LaRose will re-sign at some point. I also assume that Brandon Sutter will make the big team. Will Carolina re-sign Trevor Letowski, or will they look elsewhere?

My guess is that Carolina isn't going to take part in the free agent frenzy. If they do, it'll be for some third line winger.

More details on Pitkanen later.

It's over (and it never really began)

2008-06-30T17:44:00.005-04:00

On Monday, the Avalanche re-signed John-Michael Liles to a four-year deal the day before he would have become a sought-after free agent. This ends all speculation that the Hurricanes have him on their shopping list.

There will still be lots of quality defensemen around when the free agent "frenzy" starts tomorrow, but Liles is the one that Canes fans have been salivating over for almost a year now.

Meanwhile, down in the City of Tampa, they've gone wild with their signings and acquisitions. They signed both Ryan Malone (7 years/ $31.5M and Gary Roberts (one year $1.25M + bonuses). They have also acquired the rights to Brian Rolston. They have Vaclav (who I still refuse to call "Vinny") Prospal back under contract and there is talk of making Vincent LeCavalier a "Bolt for Life".
Somehow, amongst all of this, the Lightning aren't really in danger of coming near the cap ceiling. The trouble is, they're going to have to go all out and spend too much money on a goaltender.

Carolina has their work cut out for them. They need at least one defenseman out of the free agent pool. Some fans are clamoring for the return of Mike Commodore. I'm not crazy about that idea. They will also need at least one forward. A fourth line winger.

It seems likely that Chad LaRose will accept his qualifying offer and stay on for one year. He is scheduled to become a RFA, but because his salary will fall below the $863,156 mark, the Canes would receive no compensation if he signs elsewhere.

While the Canes bloggers have been relatively active during this extremely dead time, we haven't heard a word from the professional journalist. What gives?

Tomorrow's the big day. Paul Kukla had a great line about tomorrow, the beginning of the free agent signing period:

"Have plenty of food by your side, you won’t want to leave the computer. While your family and friends are celebrating Canada Day or a long Fourth of July holiday, you will be ridiculed, laughed at or just ignored. But don’t give in to their request to join in on the holiday fun, you see, this is our hockey holiday."

In a cruel twist of fate that only the famous ironist O. Henry would appreciate, I don't have to "work" tomorrow, which is the perfect day to have off. However, I have to tag along with the owner of my restaurant so I can assure him that I can handle the paperwork aspect of things while he's on vacation next week.

Happy Canada Day! Happy Free Agent Day!

AHL to experiment with one-minute minors in OT

2008-06-28T13:28:00.003-04:00

Greg Wyshynski, over at Puck Daddy, has reported that the AHL will, at the behest of the NHL, experiment with one-minute minor penalties in regular season overtime games next season.

The theory is the same one that Jacques Martin has used every time his Panthers team commits a penalty in overtime. The four-on-three advantage for a full two minutes is usually too much for the offending team to deal with. He links to an article in the Toronto Star, which tells us just how damaging that scenario is:

This season, 39 per cent of the penalties in OT that have resulted in a 4-on-3 power play have produced the winning goal in NHL games. It stands to reason, Campbell said, that one-minute penalties will produce fewer goals, and therefore more games will go to shootouts.

He goes on to bring up another of the points behind this experiment. A two minute minor in regulation is 10% of a period, or 3.33 % of the entire game. A two minute minor in overtime is 40 % of the period. The argument is that the punishment is much more severe for the same crime.

The way it would actually be practiced is kinda silly, especially in regards to carry-over penalties. Any remaining time from a regulation penalty would be cut in half entering the overtime period. If a player commits a hooking penalty at 19:20 of regulation serves the first 40 in regulation, then only has to serve 40 more seconds in overtime as opposed to the 80 that he actually owes. Wyshynski tells us what he thinks of that:

"Raise your hand if you think a defensive player might kill or maim to prevent a goal knowing that his team would only be shorthanded for, at most, under a minute in the OT?"

I'm with Puck Daddy on this one. I don't like it. You put youself in a serious hole if you commit penalties in overtime, so the solution is to be better disciplined. In my opinion, that is exactly the point. It should be set up so that you're very much behind the eight-ball if you commit an overtime penalty. That's the beauty and the difficulty of it. Every mistake is magnified.

I don't like the idea of comparing overtime to regulation. They're not the same. Nothing about them is the same. We all know that officiating standards are not the same in the extra frame as they are in regulation. Teams are already getting a break on law enforcement, and I don't think they should get an additional break on sentencing.

I suppose the next thing will be to play the full overtime period instead of sudden death. Either that, or they just stop playing overtime altogether and go straight from regulation to shootout. I'm against both of those ideas. They seem like ideas that might be brought up in rules committee meetings, but I hope they never are. The first quote that I lifted seems to suggest that the NHL wants more games going to shootout. They think that the fans and players like it. They think wrong.

In addition to the one minute minor experiment, the AHL is going to modify its rulebook to parrot that of the NHL. Specifically, they're going to change their rules about icing, high-sticking and delay of game (puck over glass).

Tanabe challenges buyout

2008-06-25T19:43:00.002-04:00

On Wednesday, the Carolina Hurricanes officially bought out the contract of Jeff "Green Eggs and " Hamilton. David Tanabe challenged his buyout.

This comes as no surprise. Tanabe's official status is "injured", but the Hurricanes believe that he is fit to play. I suppose the next step is to call in an independent, non-biased physician to examine Avi.

We are not surprised at this turn of events, and we want to reiterate this one point. Tanabe repeatedly failed to show up for numerous meetings with coaches and other Hurricanes front office staff. He repeatedly failed to do these meetings via conference call. He repeatedly failed to make any effort to meet with the team. He found time, though, to drag himself out of bed to remove all his gear from the RBC Center way before this buyout stuff happened. He also found time (very quickly, I might add) to meet with the NHLPA to protest this buyout attempt.

Call me a jerk or whatever, but I still say that something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

Ruutu signs; Tanabe and Hamilton clear

2008-06-24T15:46:00.003-04:00

On Tuesday, David Tanabe and Jeff Hamilton both cleared waivers. The Hurricanes will set the buy-out ball in motion. Tanabe will have to be examined and deemed healthy before this can take place, but the Hurricanes are taking the position that he is in fact healthy.
Jeff Hamilton seemed like a nice guy, and he got off to a roaring start here. However, after he settled down, things just weren't working. After notching 12 (4/8) points in the first 15 games of the season, he only mustered 12 (5/7) in the next 44 games. He also spent some time in the press box and some time soldiering away up in Albany. He had nine (3/6) points in nine games with the River Rats. Sadly, he and his smoky visor won't be back in Raleigh.

Tanabe's health continues to be a mystery. While I have certainly suggested that he's milking the injury for all (or more than) it's worth this move has nothing to do with Tanabe's injury. The CBA is quite clear about buying out injured players. Even when healthy, Tanabe would be scratched while guys like Tim Conboy were recalled from Albany.

Fortunately, fans of Tuomo Ruutu were able to finally stop holding their breath. Sort of. Today, he was signed to one of those dreaded one-year contracts. He'll get $2.25M. Ostensibly, this was done because it was, as Luke put it "the path of least resistance". The two sides have been unable to find a common ground on salary and duration of contract, so they just did this to get something done. Next July 1, he will be eligible to become a RFA. That aspect of the deal works out better for Carolina, but they had to pay a little more up front than they really wanted to.

After being acquired via trade with the Blackhawks, Ruutu quickly became a crowd favorite and he put up 11 (4/7) points in 17 games.

Coincidentally, Andrew Ladd (whom Ruutu was traded for) re-signed with the 'Hawks yesterday. In 20 games with Chicago, Ladd notched 12 (5/7) points. He was signed to a two-year deal, which will pay him $1.45M in 08-09 and $1.65M in 09-10.

With Ruutu signed and Hambone gone, Carolina still has 10 forwards and four defensemen signed. I suppose Chad LaRose will be the next to re-sign. Then defenseman Dennis Seidenberg. There are several free agents-to-be who need to be signed for Albany's sake, but they are all RFAs, so there's really no rush.

After LaRose and Seidenberg, the next order of business will be to wait till July 1, then go after a name-brand blueliner in the FA market. It's pretty much a foregone conclusion that Brandon Sutter will be the last piece of the puzzle, and he'll be snapped (forced) into place after the pre-season exhibition games.

The David Tanabe plot thickens

2008-06-23T19:32:00.003-04:00

On Monday, the Hurricanes placed winger Jeffrey Hamilton and defenseman David Tanabe on waivers. Presumably, they will both clear, and the idea is to buy out both of their contracts. Each player has one year remaining on his contract.

As you probably know, the CBA does not allow a team to buy out the contract of an injured player. David Tanabe has been out since December with concussion-like symptoms. He's failed to show up for any year-end interviews or other meetings with team staff. While his camp is still saying that he's not well enough to even leave the house, the Hurricanes are confident that if it comes down to it, a doctor will deem him "healthy". If that turns out to be the case, the buyout will be legal and Carolina can move on.

It's no surprise that Carolina is buying out Green Eggs and Hamilton. Even when the Canes were banged up with injuries last season, he was finding himself in the press box as a healthy scratch pretty frequently.

This Tanabe thing has been a mystery. The "injury" itself is mysterious enough. Nobody was ever able to ascertain exactly when or how he sustained the concussion. All we know is that it happened in "the Alexei Ponikarovsky game" wherein the Canes made a miraculous comeback from two goals down with 85 seconds to play to win the game. He left that game at some point in the first period and never came back I reviewed and reviewed the game tape, and there was never any hit that would have caused a massive concussion.

I'm not saying that he made the whole thing up. I'm not saying that he had a major row with coach Laviolette. I'm not saying that there was a false injury. I'm just saying. This whole thing is pretty weird.

When Snuggles didn't show up for the team photo at the end of the year, everyone thought it was a little weird. When he didn't show up for his exit interviews, everyone thought it was even weirder. When he repeatedly missed meetings and didn't return phone calls, everyone started to wonder what the heck was going on. All along, we were fed the same line that he couldn't even see straight, let alone play hockey.

This talk of buying out Tanabe came up a few months ago. Of course it all went by the wayside because the CBA forbids the buying out of an injured player's contract.

Today, Luke Decock reports that the Canes are gonna do it anyway. He says that the Tanabe buyout will cost the Canes $600k and the Hambone buyout would cost $533k. For 2008-09, if both players are bought out, Carolina would take a salary cap hit of $416,667.

Tanabe has been nothing but trouble. After being selected 16th overall in the 1999 entry draft, Tanbe had two tenures with the Hurricanes, but never quite lived up to the high expectations. Instead, he lived up to the nicknames "Snuggles" (for being soft) and my personal favorite "Avi" (David - D = Avi). His second time through, he was easily Carolina's worst defenseman on a very bad blueline. Even when he turned the corner around Christmas of 2006 and showed marked improvement, he was still pretty bad and extremely soft.

Immediately following the game in which he was injured, I pointed out that I couldn't tell how he got hurt and I joked:

"At some point in the first period, "Avi" Tanabe suffered a concussion, but nobody knows how or when. I assume he concussed himself when he considered actually hitting someone."

There is no doubt in my mind that Avi will be well enough to file a grievance with the NHLPA. As of today, we're getting a "no comment" from Tanabe's camp.

If this saga were going on with some other team, I'll admit that I would be crying about how unjust and callous it is for the team to try to buy out the injured player's contract. However, this has gone on long enough, and has had so many odd turns that I'm having very serious doubts about the magnitude of Tanabe's injury. I'm not at all suggesting that he has personal problems and cried "injury" to cover them up. I'm just saying.

Other teams will have until noon on Tuesday to pick up Tanabe or Hamilton. After that, we might see some fireworks.

Canes draft defenseman with famous name

2008-06-21T12:39:00.002-04:00

In the fourth round of the 2008 NHL Entry Draft, the Hurricanes went with a defenseman, Michal Jordan. Because he's a Plymouth Whaler, he's a guy they already know. Because of his name, he's already famous. Even if he doesn't spell it the same.

This season, the 6'2" 185lb blueliner from the Czech Republic played in 39 games for the Peter Karmanos-owned Plymouth Whalers of the OHL. He registered 22 (5/17) points and 32 PIM.

Carolina gets another Zac

2008-06-21T10:24:00.003-04:00

In the second round of the 2008 NHL Entry Draft, with the 45th overall pick, the Hurricanes selected center/wing Zac Dalpe. He will join first round draftee Zach Boychuk and the two of them together will be called "Zax".

Dalpe was projected by many to be a first rounder, so this is a nice pick. He was just 5'6" earlier this year, but has had a growth explosion to 6'1". He weighs just 175, so he obviously needs to put on a few, but a year or three at Ohio State should help him in that regard.

This ends any speculation that Carolina would add Jered Staal. They actually wanted to go with the youngest Staal brother, but that plan didn't involve Dalpe still being available. I'm sure the message board types are already crying in their Froot Loops over this. UPDATE Jared Staal was taken with the 49th overall pick by the Coyotes.

Carolina's director of amateur scouting Tony MacDonald joked "We're all out of Zachs. No Zachs left". Carolina's next pick will be in the fourth round, number 105 overall. At that point, Zach or no Zach, the player is likely to be almost completely irrelevant.

Canucks rumors

2008-06-21T08:44:00.003-04:00

During the first round of the draft on Friday, some rumors began to circulate that Jim Rutherford and Vancouver GM Mike Gillis were discussing the possibility of a straight-up trade which would send winger Erik Cole to the Nucks and defenseman Kevin Bieksa to the Canes.

The Canucks would love to have a guy like Cole, who is a perennial 30/30 scorer. He's listed as a left wing, but he can play either wing, and is actually better on the right side. Especially with the retirement of long-time Nuck Trevor Linden, the Canucks will be a little thin on the right side. Presumably, the interest in Cole is to plug him into the Sedinbot line, which is a role that they have had difficulty filling.

While the Nucks aren't exactly overrun with defensemen, their need to get a quality right wing is pretty glaring. While the Canes aren't exactly overrun with consistent 60-point performers, their glaring need is on the blue line.

It makes sense, then, that this rumor would fly around. Every year, there are rumors about Erik Cole. Most of the time, I have shrugged them off as ridiculous. This time, I think there might be something to it.

However, Alanah at Canucks and Beyond is suggesting that there are rumors that one or both of the Sedinbots are on the market.

She writes off the "rumors" much the same way I have written off Cole rumors in past years:

I’m curious about the source of this “speculation.” Something credible or just message board talk?

Personally, I’m betting on the message boards—or maybe just the typical Vancouver sports radio call-in-show blather that I tend to tune out. If it’s coming from someone with actual sources, I certainly haven’t stumbled across it.

It seems impossible to believe if you ask me. The Nucks went to an awful lot of trouble to make sure they could get both of the Sedins. Given the twins' insistence upon playing together, there's no way that one will be traded without the other. Who in the world would come up with an aggressive enough plan to get them both?

Maybe the Red Wings have a plan to send every one of their non-Swedes to Vancouver for the twins, but I'm only making a joke about that.

From a Vancouver perspective, that makes no sense. The Sedinbots have been the only consistently good things about the Vancouver offense for the last several years. Markus Naslund isn't getting any younger, and his production is tapering off. They need the Sedins. And the Sedins need someone to play with. I'm not sure that Cole is the best fit in the world on that right wing, but I doubt that he would be a terrible misfit.

I would be sad to see Cole go, but he's got loads of trade value. He's been a huge part of the Hurricanes team and one of the poster boys. And of course, he's been Carolina's ace in the hole whenever they play Montréal He's scheduled to be a UFA next July, and negotiations with him have always been difficult. It might be time for the Canes to pull the trigger. Cole-Bieksa would instantly fix a gaping hole in Carolina's armor. While it would certainly create a different hole, that one would be smaller.

Now, IF (and this is a big IF) Cole is shipped, that puts lots of pressure on the Canes front office to get Tuomo Ruutu and Chad "Sharpie" LaRose re-signed. It also pre-supposes that our 2007 top pick Brandon Sutter will be able to make the jump to the big team and make an impact.

More news from the draft as it develops.

Jokinen sent to the desert

2008-06-20T23:08:00.002-04:00

There were no fewer than 13 trades during the first round of the 2008 NHL Entry Draft. Although none of them directly impacted Carolina, Caniacs everywhere let out a roar when Phoenix and Florida announced their trade very early on. Olli Jokinen, who is extremely unpopular in Raleigh (this may be an understatement) will be going to the Coyotes while defensemen Keith Ballard and Nick Boynton will be in Sunrise come fall.

RBH has never been a fan of Olli Jokinen, so we will shed no tears. He has been a bit of a Cane killa, racking up a ton of points against Carolina. More than that, though, he's been a general nuisance. Aside from having some really disturbing facial hair that makes him look like a child molester, he's been a loudmouth in the press. Along with Jacques Martin, he's been the one who says bad things about Carolina in the papers. At the end of the 06-07 season, he "guaranteed" a victory against Carolina in a meaningless game, and Carolina took great joy in showing him where to stick it.

During the IIHF World Champoinships this spring, Jokinen cheapshotted USA (and Carolina Hurricanes) defenseman Tim Gleason, knocking Timmy out of the Finland-USA game.

There were a ton of other trades on Friday, but most of them involved picks only. There will probably be more on Saturday, including some name-brand players.

Rounds 2-7 will be Saturday, beginning at 10:00am eastern time, and will be broadcast on the NHL Network.

All we can say about this is "Good riddance!"

Good riddance!

Canes select Boychuk

2008-06-20T21:10:00.003-04:00

With the 14th overall pick, the Hurricanes selected centerman Zach Boychuk. The first preference was defenseman Colton Teubert, but he had just been selected with the 13th pick by the Kings.

Boychuk brings a ton of explosive speed and a moderate amount of offensive output. With his diminutive 5'9" frame and those traits, that sounds a lot like Ray Whitney. We should be so lucky. The TSN scouts have compared him to Jason Blake.

There has been some speculation, and it was perpetuated by the Versus draft coverage, that Carolina and Vancouver are talking about the possibility of swapping a forward (read: Erik Cole) for defenseman Kevin Bieksa. As far as salary is concerned, those two players would be a wash. With the likely addition of last year's first round pick Brandon Sutter and the probable re-signings of Chad LaRose and Tuomo Ruutu, Carolina will have a glut of forwards. I would be sad to see Cole go, but it's no secret that Carolina is in desperate need of some help on the back end.

There have already been a large number of transactions on draft day, and there should be some more on Saturday.

More on Boychuk and the possible trades later

Good day for Gleason, Canes

2008-06-19T16:02:00.004-04:00

On Thursday afternoon, the Hurricanes announced that they have finally come to terms with defenseman Tim Gleason. The 25-year old, who was arguably Carolina's best blueliner last season was scheduled to become a RFA on July 1, but after months of difficult negotiations, the two sides have agreed to a four year $11M deal. Last year, Gleason made $1.175M.

Timmmmmaaay will make $2M in 2008-09, and his salary will increase by $500k every year, culminating in a $3.5M payday in 2011-12. His raise is well-deserved and his long term contract will be much appreciated by the Caniacs. Carolina's defense was, at times, dreadful last season. Gleason was the only player who was consistently good.

Gleason will join Joe Corvo, Frantisek Kaberle and Nic Wallin as the top four defensemen. Carolina still has to get RFA-to-be Dennis Seidenberg re-signed and acquire one other defenseman via trade or free agency. There isn't a Hurricanes fan anywhere who would object to going after John-Michael Liles in free agency.

It's still very early, but I will continue to say, as I have said all along that Carolina is much happier with Tim Gleason than they could have possibly been with an arrogant, petulant player in Jack Johnson. Gleason hasn't fully ripened yet, and Jack Johnson probably hasn't even started, but I'll take Gleason any day of the week and twice on Sundays.

Jason Karmanos returns to front office

2008-06-18T08:23:00.004-04:00

Less than a year after quitting his Assistant GM post citing "personal reasons", Jason Karmanos (son of Hurricanes owner Peter Karmanos) has returned to the front office.

According to the N&O, the time away from the team only strengthened Karmanos' passion for the game. After spending quality time with his wife and kids, pondering a different career, he just couldn't stay away

"I honestly thought I might do something different," Jason Karmanos said. "But in relatively short order I found myself being pulled back by the team and my interest level in the game. It was good to step away. I took some time and found out this is where my heart is."

When he stepped away last fall, many of the mouth-breathing masses panicked. They feared that his departure was a harbinger of very bad things to come. They would all say "He must know something we don't. The team is about to be sold and moved to Winnipeg overnight!" Of course the more rational ones of us saw it as just some guy looking to change his career.

Yesterday, I watched a video clip of Jim Rutherford's "state of the franchise" address. One of the things he spoke about was the recent coaching changes. About Jeff Daniels he said "It'll be good for him because he gets to run the whole (Albany River Rats) team. He still has to answer to Ron Francis and Jason Karmanos..." I wondered if he had misspoken, but now it all makes sense.

Welcome back, Jason.

Weird hockey card #2: Pat Falloon

2008-06-16T22:37:00.006-04:00

In what may or may not be more than a three-part series, RBH takes another look at a weird hockey card. Tonight's oddity: 1992-93 Pat Falloon (Pinnacle #238).
Click to enlarge

Pat Falloon was highly touted and was the second overall pick in the deep 1991 NHL entry draft. Unfortunately, he didn't quite live up to the expectations. In nine NHL seasons, he played for five different teams, amassing 322 (143/179) points in 575 games. Not bad, but not exactly what you would hope for out of a #2 overall pick.

According to the card, which is valued at about 20 cents, Falloon spent off-seasons "riding a tractor on his family's grain farm outside Foxwarren, Manitoba". Yeah. I'm sure Eric, Jordan and Marc Staal still help out on Henry's sod farm during the summer, too.

This card has absolutely nothing, NOTHING, to do with hockey. Not only is it absurd because of that, but it shows Falloon wearing a San Jose Sharks t-shirt/hat combo that he probably didn't even own, and a completely ridicuous pair of white shorts. The back of the card says Pat Falloon, FARMER. There is no way that there is a real farmer anywhere in the world who wears white shorts. Real farmers don't wear short pants at all. I know it was the early nineties, but that's just absurd. Way beyond my willing suspension of disbelief.

For some reason, this card reminded me of a funny parody radio commercial I heard a few years ago. Somebody put it up on YouTube, and I feel obliged to share it. Be warned though. The material within the YouTube link is not appropriate for most working environments.

The next "weird card" in this series (and maybe the last) will be Jeff O'Neill. Look for that in the next couple of days.

I've also got some "random" cards of some of the potential HOF inductees. They're not weird in any way, but I might use them as well.

Getting to know..... Colten Teubert

2008-06-16T18:07:00.003-04:00

Carolina is scheduled to have the 14th overall pick in the upcoming 2008 NHL Entry Draft this weekend in Ottawa. This is a pretty deep draft class, and there are quite a few names being bandied about in mock drafts as the 14th pick. One of those players, Colten Teubert, is featured today on NHL.com.

Teubert, a defenseman whom many are calling "mini-Pronger" is 6'4" and 185 pounds. The weight is obviously an issue, but a couple more years in junior hockey and another in the AHL should help him grow into his big frame. Although he doesn't quite possess the offensive acumen that Pronger does, he's got the hard-hitting, shut-down defensive style going.

It's extremely unlikely that Teubert would be NHL-ready, even to a team as desperate for blueliners as Carolina. That said, Carolina has no shortage of forwards in the system, so a defenseman will probably be the way to go.

When Carolina's two Mesozoic Era defensemen retired this month, it left a gaping hole in the blue line. Negotiations with Tim Gleason have come to a screeching halt, and I haven't heard a word about Dennis Seidenberg. Bret Hedican can be replaced with a traffic cone, but Glen Wesley will be impossible to replace. The Hurricanes have four defensemen signed for next season, but one of them is David "Snuggles" Tanabe, who suffered a mystery concussion back in December and has essentially vanished from the face of the earth. Injured players cannot be bought out, but Carolina can put him on the long-term injured reserve list, which would exempt his salary from counting towards the cap.

I've probably said this 999 times already this summer, but it is absolutely imperative that the Canes get some new blood on the blue line. I've started to hatch an armchair GM plan for the Canes to trade down in the draft for a young NHL-defenseman under contract. I've got a pretty short list of desired players and a couple of different scenarios. The more I think about this kind of thing, the more I think that it might be Carolina's best bet for shoring up the blue line. The Hurricanes have been clever, but never aggressive in the free agent market. There's only so many J-M Liles in the world and there's going to be a lot of teams showing up on his front stoop with flowers and candy. Jim Rutherford has never been the flowers and candy type of GM.

I'm REALLY bored, and the draft is four days away.

Weird hockey card #1: Martin Lapointe

2008-06-14T21:48:00.010-04:00

Now that the Stanley Cup playoffs are over, we have a long summer ahead of us. The entry draft is next weekend, followed by the free agent signing period beginning on July 1. I'm already really bored.

I have a few projects in mind for the summer to break the monotony of "and so and so signed a contract with such and such team for whatever whatever years at yadda yadda dollars." One potential project will involve the participation of bloggers for other teams.

One other project, which I'll introduce tonight, is very much inspired by an excellent series over at IPB called "Project Bicycle Spoke". Basically, they bought a bunch of 07-08 hockey cards, put them in a shoe box, draw one out at random and write a little bit about the player (and the card). This is a very entertaining series, and I highly recommend reading them all. IPB has become a daily read for me, and I suggest you all do the same.

For a few months, I've been buying these hockey card sets at Target that have four packs of cards from the 06-07 season, and also 100 completely random cards. These "random" cards are really really random. They're not just "assorted", they're random. Most are from a name-brand card company, and most are from at the very earliest the late 80s, but some are either from an off-off-off brand or they're more than 30 years old, or both. I've bought four of these sets, and to illustrate the "randomness" of it, one set had three of the exact same Eric Weinrich card from the 1990-91 season. This card is worth about 25 cents.

Anyway, there's usually one card in every set that makes me laugh. I'm going to try to share these with you. Unfortunately, I don't have a scanner, so I have to take a photo of the card, but I hope you enjoy. I don't know what I'm gonna call this project, or even if I'm going to give it a name, but without further ado, here is a very strange Martin Lapointe card:

First off, this is from a card company called "Arena Holograms", which I've never heard of. I guess this card had something to do with the entry draft that year. Presumably, they had everyone who was projected to be a first round pick pose for one of these cards wearing a tuxedo and a hockey stick. It looks like they had him pegged to be the #8 pick, but he actually went as the #10 pick to the Detroit Red Wings. At first, I thought the card was funny, but the more I look at it, the more I think it's creepy.
Despite the comparisons that were made to Mario Lemieux, Lapointe never really made it big in the NHL. He's still playing, and he's a player that everybody knows, but he never had the offensive output that people were expecting from him.

I've looked this card up in several databases, and nobody has it listed. At all. AFter a little bit of research, I found out that this was the first and only year that this series of cards was produced. Apparently, the #1 card in that series was a hologram of Pat Falloon, who went with the #2 pick to the Sharks, right behind Eric Lindros. Later on, RBH will bring you a goofy card featuring the very same Pat Falloon.

As an aside, that 1991 draft was pretty packed. Ray Whitney was the first pick in the second round (23rd overall), and there were some really good players deep into the third round.

Another puzzle piece snaps into place

2008-06-11T18:45:00.003-04:00

In a week of very boring Canes-related news, the latest is that goaltender Michael Leighton has been signed to a two-year NHL contract.

This move has been expected since about the middle of February, and it has finally come to pass. Leighton, who just turned 27, will make $600k, which is a savings of $800k from what they were paying Johnny Crackers.

Leighton was the best goaltender in the AHL in 2007-08, going 28-25-4 with a GAA of 2.10 and a save percentage of .931. He won the Aldege "Baz" Bastien award as the league's top netminder. He set an AHL record with 98 saves in a five-overtime loss in the Calder Cup playoffs. He also appeared in three games for the Canes, going 1-1-0.

This totally expected signing snaps another puzzle piece into place.

Carolina has two goaltenders, ten forwards and three defensemen signed for next season. The defense is the number one priority right now. The deal with Tim Gleason that was alleged to be "close" a few weeks ago has stalled. RBH is hoping that the two sides can agree to a long-term contract, but we're fearing that these negotiations will culminate in a one-year deal. We don't like one-year deals.

If both Gleason and Dennis Seidenberg are re-signed, there still leaves one spot to be filled. There continues to be loads of speculation that the Hurricanes are interested in John-Michael Liles. He is scheduled to become a UFA on July 1, and will probably have lots of suitors.

Brooks Orpik is slated to become a UFA and the word on the street is that the Pens won't be making extra effort to keep him. There are a lot of fans in Carolina who still aren't ready to let the Cole-Orpik thing go, but even the most unforgiving person would have to admit that Orpik is a good, tough defenseman that most teams would be happy to have.

Nashville's Shea Weber is a RFA-to-be worth pondering. I don't see a whole lot of other interesting (and affordable) options in the FA market.

Of course there's still loads of talk about moving one of the "extra" forwards for a high-profile defenseman in a trade. One rumor that has popped up is sending Erik Cole to the Canucks for defenseman Kevin Bieksa. I haven't studied the pros and cons of that one, but I do know that Bieksa just signed a three-year deal worth $11.25M.

The draft is just nine days away, then the FA period ten days after that.

Is it October yet?

Canes featured on NHL Network again

2008-06-10T20:49:00.007-04:00

After a week of the NHL Network showing the 2006 Stanley Cup Finals, they've got another bit of programming that features the Hurricanes. You've gotta set your DVRs, coz this isn't prime time.

As part of their ongoing "Classic Series" series, they're showing the 1999 Eastern Conference quarterfinals between the Bruins and the Hurricanes. It'll air Wednesday morning at 9:00 and again on Thursday at 3:00 am.

It was Carolina's second season in North Carolina, and they were still in their temporary "home" in Greensboro. Carolina was the Southeast division champs and the #3 seed in the east. Their mediocre 86 standings points would not have gotten them a wildcard berth, but thanks to a very weak division, they were in. Boston was the "road" team, but was favored to win. Carolina gave them more of a challenge than they expected.

Boston won the series 4-2, and the pivotal game was game five, in Greensboro. April 30, 1999. The series was tied 2-2, and after regulation, the game was tied 3-3. The crowd stood for the entire first overtime, which solved nothing. Again, the crowd stood for the entire second overtime. Anson Carter scored at 14:45 of the second overtime to win the game and, effectively, the series. Game six, up in Boston was a shutout, officially ending the Hurricanes playoff season on May 2.

While most teams would shrug it off as "just another playoff loss", this one was very hard to take for Canes fans. The team immediately returned home, and had a party at Gary Roberts' house in Raleigh. Defenseman Steve Chiasson had way too much to drink and made a very bad decision to attempt to drive himself home. Things didn't work out. Chiasson was in a single car accident in which he was killed instantly.

Bring up "1999 playoffs" to a longtime Hurricanes fan, and you'll probably get a very somber look.

I was at that epic game five. I walked up to the ticket booth and bought a lower level center ice ticket about an hour before puck drop. Officially, the attendance was just a hair over 11,000. Carolina's attendance woes during the "Greensboro years" are well documented, and this was one of the best ones. For the record, the Greensboro Coliseum is equipped to hold 20,000 for hockey, but seldomly had more than 5,000 for a Canes game. That's another story for another day.

Back to the epic game five. Steve Chiasson scored the game's first goal. Nobody had any way of knowing it, but it would be his last.

I've turned my pigsty of an apartment upside down looking for the ticket stub to that game. I'm a bit of a packrat, and I did dig up some other tickets to other hockey games before my season ticket days. Also, I found some NFL football tickets and some movie tickets and some airplane boarding passes and some ten year old gas station receipts and various and sundry garbage. I remembered why I kept most of them, but there were some real head-scratchers in there. Anyway, I had no luck finding the stub to that game. For that matter, I couldn't find any remnants of "the Greensboro years".

One very cool sidenote about the Chiasson saga is that he and Cory Stillman were teammates in Calgary from 1994 to 1997. They also both grew up in Peterborough, Ontario. The town of Peterborough erected a small statue of Chiasson in one of its parks. As a beautiful gesture, Stillman used his day with the Stanley Cup in 2006 to visit that statue of his friend and teammate.

It'll be interesting to watch that "Classic series", but very hard at the same time. It was very exciting, as new hockey fans in North Carolina were introduced to playoff hockey, but it culminated in tragedy. That series, and more specifically, the Chiasson tragedy, was one of the most defining moments for this franchise. Every team goes through the loss of a playoff series, and must learn to do so gracefully. That's the easy part. Dealing with the death of a player is the impossible part.

An open letter to Flames fans

2008-06-09T21:33:00.004-04:00

Dear Flames fans,
Don't be alarmed. Put away the razor blades. Get off that ledge. Everything is gonna be okay. Dion Phaneuf isn't doomed for failure. This isn't the NFL. Everything is gonna be okay.

Love,
RBH

To explain: Dion Phaneuf has been selected to be the cover star for EA Sports' NHL '09 video game. If this were the NFL, there would be cause for alarm. No Madden cover star has escaped without going on the IR or to jail. This, however, isn't the NFL.

Last summer, when it was announced that Eric Staal was going to be the cover star for NHL '08, I did some exhaustive research, and I concluded that there is no "curse". In fact, starring on the cover of the EA hockey game has generally been a good thing.

The first EA NHL game that used a "cover boy" was NHL '97. Here's how things worked out:

1997 -- John Vanbiesbrouck. The goalie for the Panthers saw his numbers improve slightly over the previous Cup-run season. Cover boy done good!

1998 -- Peter Forsberg. Foppa's productivity was slightly up during the 1998 season. He went from 86 (28/58) to 91 (25/66) points, and was healthier than he'd been in years. Cover boy done good!

1999 -- Eric Lindros. "Big E" went from 71 (30/41) to 93 (40/53) points. Cover boy done real good. The only thing is that it was his last really good season while he was on the box.

2000 -- Chrissy Pronger. Prongs had the best season of his career that season, so EA was good to him. Cover boy done real good.

2001 -- Owen Nolan. This was the best example of EA being bad to its cover boy. After a career best season (by far) in 2000, Nolan came down to earth. He went from 84 (44/40) to a more characteristic 49 (24/25) points. CURSED!!!

2002 -- SuperMario. Lemieux was plagued with injuries in 2002 and only played in 24 games, but he still put up SuperMario-like numbers, tallying 31 (6/25) games in a quarter of a season. He was never fully healthy again.
No ruling on this one.

2003 -- Jarome Iginla Iggy won the Richard trophy in 2002, but had a letdown of a season in 2003. He went from 96 (52/44) to a less exciting 67 (35/32) points. He was in the 70's the next season, then the '60s in '06, then in the '90s in '07 and '08. The box was unkind to him, putting him on a three-year skid. BADLY CURSED!!!

2004 (a) -- Dany Heatley and 2004 (b) -- Joe Sakic. The game had already hit the shelves when Heatley had the car crash that killed Dan Snyder. After returning from his own massive injuries, he played well, but it's fair to say that he was CURSED TIMES INFINITY!!!!
The Heatley box was pulled, and the replacement was Sakic. He went from 58 (26/32) in an injury-shortened season to 87 (33/54) points, which was very close to his career average of 1.2 points a game. Auxiliary cover boy done good!

2005 -- Markus Naslund. NHL players were locked out. Coming out of the lockout, he was pretty much on par with his career numbers, but since then, he's had a sharp decline in production. Since there was the lockout, there's no judgement on this one.

2006 -- Vincent LeCavalier. He had a marginally better season while on the box than the season before. He won the Richard trophy the following season and kept that pace in '08. Cover boy done real good.

2007 -- Alexander Ovechkin. Ovie's '07 numbers were just barely less than his '06 numbers, but not enough (from 106 to 92) to be concerned. He bounced back the following year with 112 (65/47) and the Richard trophy. Cover boy done good!

2008 -- Eric Staal. After having a "letdown" season in 2007, being on the box did him some good. He went from 70 (30/40) to 82 (38/44) and his third straight season with 30+ goals. Cover boy done good!

For the 2009 game, Phaneuf becomes the second Flames player and only the second defenseman in the series. He'd be hard-pressed to do much better than the 60 (17/43) that he put up from the back end last season.

The point is, there is no curse. If anything, it's been a good thing (for the most part) to have been the coverboy for the EA NHL series. I think Heatley's case stands out as an extraordinary counterexample.

Canes have their own little coaching carousel

2008-06-09T16:54:00.003-04:00

On Monday, the Hurricanes announced that they will be making some coaching changes within the organ-eye-zation. Peter Laviolette isn't going anywhere, but there were two significant changes that look to be beneficial for everyone. Long time Hurricanes AHL affiliate head coach Tom Rowe has been called up to be Peter Laviolette's assistant. He will both replace and be replaced by Hurricanes assistant coach Jeff Daniels. That's right. Daniels and Rowe have swapped jobs.

Daniels, who very inconspicuously played parts of six seasons with the Whaler/Canes between 96-97 and 02-03, went immediately from the ice to the bench upon his retirement. The anonymous left winger played 272 games with the Whaler/Canes, which was the bulk of his NHL career. He notched just 20 (8/12) points with the organ-eye-zation, but was always well respected for his ice smarts and his work ethic. For what it's worth, he was always my ex-girlfriend Eleanor's favorite player. She hated Justin Williams from the word go just because he wore Daniels' number 11 sweater.

Tom Rowe also spent part of his playing career with the Whale. Between 79-80 and 81-82, he played 115 games for the blue and green, notching 55 (23/32) points. He spent the majority of his playing career (off and on) with the Capitals. In 1979, he became the only American-born player to register 30 goals in a season when he had 31 in 69 games for the Caps.
Rowe joined the AHL Lowell Lock Monsters as an assistant coach for the 2001-02 season and became head coach in 2004-05. When the Hurricanes switched their AHL affiliate to the Albany River Rats, Rowe went with. In four full seasons as head coach, he's had a 156-130-5-29 record.

Rowe, who has done a good job in Lowell/Albany, knows and has coached many of the players on the Canes roster. He'll be getting an excellent chance to work in the NHL and position himself for a head coaching job somewhere.

In addition to becoming the new head coach of the River Rats, Daniels will also be the GM. Both will be new and exciting experiences for him and an excellent move for him career-wise.

A while back, I heard some speculation that former captain and all-around classy guy Kevin Dineen was being earmarked for a coaching position within the club, but it appears that he's staying put as the skipper of the AHL Portland Pirates. The Pirates, who had been affiliated with the Ducks are scheduled to announce a new NHL affiliation on Tuesday. It will either be a one-year deal with the Stars, or some longer-term thing with Florida.

Canes to revamp blueline

2008-06-07T10:51:00.004-04:00

On Thursday, the Hurricanes officially announced two things that came as a surprise to absolutely nobody. First, Glen Wesley is retiring. Second, Bret Hedican will not be a Hurricane next season. Carolina currently has three healthy defenseman under contract for next season and will by default be a much younger group in the fall.

Just nanoseconds after the Wesley announcement, it was announced that the Hurricanes will be retiring his sweater number 2 at some point in the 2008-09 season. Wesley played 20 NHL seasons, ten of them with the Hurricanes. He also played three seasons with the Whalers before the team relocated to North Carolina. Before that, he played seven seasons with the Bruins

There are as many as seven former Whalers still in the NHL, but since Sami Kapinen and Glen Wesley both retired this week, just one is a Whaler/Cane: Marek Malik.

In 1994 Wesley was acquired from the Bruins for three first round draft picks. One of those picks would become Sergei Samsonov, who has resurrected his career with the Hurricanes.

Wesley played in 1,457 NHL games, which puts him at 16th all-time and ninth among defensemen. In terms of games played with the Whaler/Canes he had 903, which is second only to some guy named Ron Francis.

Looking at this list, he's in some pretty elite company.

One of my favorite on-ice memories of Wesley is from game one of the 2006 SCF. At the end of the first period and the Canes killing a penalty, Wesley blocked three shots in one shift, and they were all off his body. One on the ankle, one on the knee and one on the thigh. He limped off the ice and into the room, but returned to give everything he had. He ended the game with five blocked shots and a +2 rating.

That summer, he used his day with the Cup to visit wounded US Marines at Camp Lejeune.

The team announced further that it has hired Wesley to be the "Director of Defenseman Development". This is a position that was created out of thin air, but a very classy move by the organ-eye-zation. Wesley's work ethic has never been called into question, and he'll do a fine job developing prospects.

After Ron Francis, Wesley will be just the second Hurricane to have his sweater officially retired. Steve Chiasson's #3 has been "unofficially" retired, and the Canes have honored Hartford's retirement of the #9 sweater for Gordie Howe.

Like Francis, Wesley never cared about being in the spotlight and always deflected praise with class and compliments about his teammates. Whenever that sweater retirement ceremony is, I'll be there to cover the whole thing. "Ron Francis night" was excellent, and I expect "Glen Wesley night" to be just as good.

With Wesley (39) and Hedican (37) no longer in the fold, the Canes will need to pick up at least one defenseman through trade or free agency. Re-signing Tim Gleason is a very high priority. Tim Conboy acquitted himself quite well during his call-ups, so we should hope to get him re-signed as well as Dennis Seidenberg. Still, though, Carolina will need at least one, and probably two young NHL-calibre defensemen. There continues to be a ridiculous amount of speculation concerning a trade involving Erik Cole.

The draft is two weeks away. Then the free agent period begins on July 1.

As god is my witness, I thought penguins could fly.

2008-06-04T22:42:00.001-04:00

To toot my own horn, I predicted this a year ago. Sort of. I predicted that Pittsburgh would be the Cup runner-up, and the nineteenth different team in a row to do that. However, I was a little off the mark with my prediction of Calgary as the winner.

Apologies to station manager Arthur Carlson and the entire staff of WKRP for stealing their joke. Unfortunately, the punchline isn't delivered in this clip, but here's the setup:

The Red Wings captured the Stanley Cup on Wednesday night, winning the series four games to two. After game one, I thought it might not be such a good fight. After game two, I changed my pick to "Wings in three". After game three, which the Pens won, I was cautiously optimistic.
The Wings took the lead with about seven minutes to go, in game four, and it seemed like they would salt it away. However, their celebration was postponed when Maxime Talbot scored with about 36 seconds left to tie it and force overtime. It was postponed even more when Petr Sykora won the game for the Pens halfway through the third overtime period.

Henrik Zetterberg got the game-winning goal on a bit of a lapse by Emma Fleury, who made the stop but knocked it into his own net with his butt. By then, the Conn Smythe voting had already taken place, but getting the Cup-clinching goal certainly justifies what might have otherwise been a controversial award.

With the Wings win, one long NHL tradition ended. Nick Lidstrom became the first European captain to hoist the Cup.

Another completely ridiculous trend continued. Pittsburgh became the 19th different Cup runner up in the last 19 Cups. Although The Minnesota NorthStars (1991) and the Dallas Stars (2000) both lost during this streak which started in 1989, there were different fans, different cities, different arenas. Technically speaking, the Stars are and aren't a continuation of the NorthStars, but that's a different discussion. Check here for details about this streak of different runners-up.

What this means is that there are 12 teams who are not on that list. In order to keep the streak alive, one of the following teams must LOSE in the Stanley Cup finals next season:
Atlanta
Tampa
Toronto
Islanders
Rangers

San Jose
Phoenix
Nashville
Columbus
St. Louis
Colorado
Minnesota Wild

My guess is the Sharks. Fans in San Jose should go ahead and prepare themselves for the heartbreak that will be theirs next June. Who will win? Perhaps Montréal.

Last June 7, I correctly predicted that Pittsburgh would be this year's runner-up. Today, I'm predicting that the Sharks will find themselves added to that ridiculous list. I'll write more about this later.

An historical look at the Stanley Cup finals

2008-06-03T22:42:00.006-04:00

Because there's an off day and I have nothing better to do, I did some research about the history of Stanley Cup finals. There's some interesting stuff about power outages, forced evacuations, neutral site games, entire series played in one arena, and even ties in the Stanley Cup finals.

Using this as a starting point, I did some investigating into how many times the team with "home ice advantage" has won and how many times the Cup was presented on "home ice".

In the "modern" NHL-only era, which began in 1927, the Cup has been presented 80 times. The best-of-seven format began in 1939, but it hasn't always used the 2-2-1-1-1 format. In 1944, for example, the series only needed four games, but it appears that the format would have been 1-2-2-1-1. In 1984 and 1985, they used the ridiculous 2-3-2 format which the NBA still uses. It gives the "road" team the advantage. Edmonton was the "road" team both of those seasons. Each time, they split the first two games, then swept their three straight home games for the "road" team. Thank goodness the NHL did away with that.

In 1988, there was an oddity in that game four at Boston was canceled when the power went out at 16:37 of the second period with the score tied 3-3. The series moved back to Edmonton where they played what was technically game five. They had three home games out of four official games, and completed the sweep.

In 1940, the Rangers only got two of six games at home despite being the "home" team. The circus ran them out of town, as they often did in the 1930's.

Between 1931 and 1938, a best-of-five series was used. Theoretically, the format was 2-2-1, but it didn't go that way very often. In 1932, 1933 and 1937 the Rangers were only availed Madison Square Gardens for one game while the circus held court. 1932 was especially odd in that game two between the Rangers and Maple Leafs was played in BostonIn 1928, the entire best-of-five series between the Rangers and the English-speaking Montréal Maroons was played at the Maroons' barn due to the circus.

In 1929 and 1930, the NHL experimented with a best-of-three format. Both years saw the winning team sweep the series 2-0.

In the first year of the "modern" era, Ottawa and Boston played a best of three series that required four games, and was won 2-0. Yeah. That's not a typo. In those days, if a game was still tied after one overtime period, it just ended as a tie. Even in the Stanley Cup finals. Games one and three ended in ties, but Ottawa took games two and four to win the best of three series 2-0 in four games.

Out of 80 cups, 55 have gone to the team who had home ice advantage. Nine in a row have gone to the "home team".

The Cup has been awarded on the winning team's home ice less frequently: just 48 times. Nine of the 32 "road ice" presentations occurred after a four-game sweep. The same occurred once after a two-game sweep of a best-of-three series.

Anyway, the point is that if the Penguins can rally, they will accomplish something that only the 1945 Maple Leafs and the 1971 Canadiens did. They'll be trying to win a SCF game seven on the road.

Of course, they still have to win game six at home for that last stat to be relevant. If not, the Red Wings will be the 33rd team to hoist the Cup on enemy territory, and the first since the 2000 Devils.

Click on the little image on the left for a full-size view of the spreadsheet I created after gathering the data.

Petr Sykora ends marathon game after calling his shot.

2008-06-03T00:50:00.004-04:00

Petr Sykora was a hero on ~~Monday night~~ Tuesday morning when he scored the game-winning goal he promised Pierre McGuire he would score. He didn't quite point to the left field bleachers, but not far from it. During the second overtime, he pointed to himself indicating to NBC's ice-level crew that he would score the game winner. He did.

I'm amazed.

Amazed that he called his shot. Amazed that he came through with the promise. Amazed. Just amazed.

Way back in the third period when the Wings took a 3-2 lead with about seven minutes to go, I started writing a eulogy for the Penguins. Almost three full periods later, at 12:51 in the morning, Sykora forced a game six in Pittsburgh.

Emma Fleury was absolutely awesome. I hate that word, but in this case, I was literally awe struck by his play in periods three through six. The Wings were applying relentless pressure, crashing the nets hard and shooting a ton. Fleury answered the bell every time.

Pittsburgh still has a very steep hill to climb, but they are by no means out of it.

Game six will be Wednesday night at Mellon Arena.

In a lot of ways, this series is really reminding me of the Canes-Oilers series in 2006.

Zetterberg to get Conn Smythe?

2008-06-02T01:40:00.004-04:00

With a possible Cup-clinching game five in Detroit on Monday night, it's a foregone conclusion that the Red Wings will eventually sew it up. It's a pretty common opinion that they'll do it on Monday night at home. There are, however, different opinions about who will win the Conn Smythe trophy. My vote is for Henrik Zetterberg.

If I remember correctly, the people who participate in the voting do so during the second intermission of a potential cup-clinching game. While the trophy most often goes to a member of the Cup-winning team, it has gone to a member of the losing team five times.

If Zetterberg wins the playoffs MVP trophy, he will be just the third non-Canadian to do so in its 43-year history. Fellow teammate and fellow Swede Nick Lidstrom won the hardware in 2002, and American Brian Leetch won in 1994.

Zetterberg has 23 (12/11) points in the playoffs, which is second to Sid Crosby's 24 (6/18). He leads all players in the playoffs with a +16 rating. He has also proven to be a very valuable two-way player. The play he made against Crosby during the five-on-three sequence was one for the ages. You know the one. That was an epic shift for him as he probably took away a goal with his stick-on-stick play against Crosby, then created a quality shorthanded chance (three on five, no less!).

There's also a lot of buzz about Chris Osgood, who has been sensational in the nets. In this finals series, he has only surrendered four goals. He has two shutouts in the Stanley Cup finals and one other in the playoffs. To be fair, though, Detroit's vice-like defense has made his job pretty easy, limiting the other teams to very few quality chances.

If Ozzy has a shutout going at the second intermission on Monday night, it'll be hard for the voters to dismiss him, but I still think Zetterberg deserves it.

All that said, I hope the Penguins can eke out at least one more win. Just to make it interesting.

If the Wings close it out on Monday, fans will witness the third Stanley Cup presentation at the Joe. If they need to take it to game six, it will be Mellon Arena's first Stanley Cup presentation. Both Penguins Cups were won on road ice.

Some thoughts about the draft

2008-05-31T17:02:00.004-04:00

The 2008 NHL Entry Draft will take place in Ottawa on June 20 and 21. With the first pick, the Lightning will be taking Steven Stamkos. The next three picks are expected to all be defensemen. The Kings will pick Drew Doughty, the Thrash will pick Zach Bogosian, the Blues will pick Alex Pietrangelo. After that, there really isn't any consensus.

Carolina will have the 14th pick. Some mock drafts have the Canes picking center Joshua Bailey (not "Josh"), who put up 96 (29/67) points in 67 games for the Windsor Spitfire of the OHL, good enough for tenth in the OHL. Bailey is 6'1" and 190 pounds. He wouldn't be able to make the jump straight to the NHL, and he is too young for the AHL, so if he is the drafted player, he'll spend at least one more season in Windsor. The projection is that he'll make a second line centerman in the NHL when his time comes.

Another popular projection for the Canes to pick with 14 is offensive defenseman Michael Del Zotto. He tallied 63 (16/47) points in 64 games for the Oshawa Generals of the OHL this past season. That points total was third among defensemen in the OHL in 2007-08. The 6'0" 210 pound youngster was slotted as high as fifth on the pre-season rankings. However, he slid down the chart because scouts have deemed him to be somewhat of a defensive liability. Still, the same scouts say that his ability to quarterback a power play and make plays is still enough to warrant a mid-first round selection.

I'm sure at some point I'll have more details on these and other players the Canes might pick with their first round selection.

Most analysts are suggesting that Jared Staal, the youngest of the four boys, will go early-mid second round. Carolina has the fifteenth pick in the second round (45th overall). If he's available, I'd be surprised to see the Canes pass on him at that point. For the record, Jared is the only Staal boy who shoots right handed. He had a less than spectacular season with the Sudbury Wolves of the OHL, scoring 49 (21/28) points in 60 games while accumulating a -11 rating as the second best player on the worst team in the league.

NHL Network loving the 2006 playoffs

2008-05-29T23:22:00.005-04:00

As the 2008 Stanley Cup finals are in full swing, and Pittsburgh has finally come off the ropes, the NHL Network is showing a lot of the great games from the 2006 playoffs. Hockey fans in general and Canes fans in particular should take note.

On Friday afternoon in the United States, the NHL Network will treat its subscribers to game 5 of the Eastern Conference semifinals between the Hurricanes and the Devils. That was the series clinching win, a 4-1 victory for the Canes. Personally, I'd rather see the game 2 "miracle", when Eric Staal scored with 3 seconds left to force overtime, then Nic "Secret Weapon" Wallin got the game winner on a disputed goal. This one will do, though.

On Saturday in the United States, subscribers can see the incredible game 7 of the 2006 Eastern Conference finals against Buffalo. Carolina won that game 4-2. If they show the segue from the second intermission to puck drop of the third, I am prominently featured in both the CBC and the NBC feed with my ridiculous sign proclaiming 'MY BEARD BELIEVES'. Look for that.

Game 5, Eastern Conference semifinal CAR vs NJD Friday at 2:00pm (eastern)
Game 7, Eastern Conference final CAR vs BUF Saturday at 8:00pm (eastern)
Top 10 offensive performances 2006 playoffs Sunday at 7:00pm (eastern)

And then the whole 2006 Stanley Cup finals:

Game 1, Monday at 8:00pm (eastern)
Game 2, Tuesday at 10:00pm (eastern)
Game 3, Wednesday at 8:00pm (eastern)
Game 4, Thursday June 5 at 10:00pm (eastern)
Game 5, Friday June 6 at 10:00pm (eastern)
Game 6, Saturday June 7 at 8:00pm (eastern)
and the granddaddy of them all:
Game 7, Sunday June 8 at 8:00pm (eastern)

Each of these games will be shown a few times. Check your local listings for details, or visit their site.

Canucks prospect killed in motorcycle crash

2008-05-29T19:17:00.005-04:00

Today, the Vancouver Canucks sadly announced that their top prospect, defenseman Luc Bourdon, was involved in a fatal motorcycle accident this afternoon.

Bourdon was the 10th overall pick in the 2005 NHL Entry Draft. He played in 27 games this past season for the Nucks, registering 2 goals and 20 PIM. He also played 41 games for the AHL Manitoba Moose, scoring six goals and adding eight assists and 68 PIM.

According to reports, Bourdon bought a motorcycle two days ago. Today, he collided with a tractor-trailer after losing control of the bike. There have been rumors of winds gusting up to 50MPH, which may have contributed to the accident.

This is the first death of an active NHL player since Sergei Zholtok in November of the lockout year.

The Canucks organization has suffered a big loss, and the entire NHL will mourn. There will be a moment of silence before Saturday's game four of the Stanley Cup final.

Canucks report

Tidying up, part deux

2008-05-29T18:19:00.004-04:00

A few days ago, I started what promises to be a very long process: tidying up this blog. First, I got rid of some dead wood in the blogroll. Then I added a couple of blogs to the roll.

I asked for some help with getting a better looking banner for the blog, and I got a few emails about that with some pretty good designs. Thanks to everyone who sent me one.

I felt like I would be a chump if I didn't incorporate the "Canes girl" that my friend Rob sent me. In all his modesty, he said he put it together in just a few seconds. Anyway, I experimented with a few different ways to work the girl into a logo/banner, and I just got tired. And frustrated. So I went with simplicity. Thanks again to Rob for the picture.

Thanks also to the others who sent me their designs. They may be used at some point.

Still to come, an overhaul of the whole template.

I should also mention again that this blog is designed to be viewed using the Mozilla Firefox browser. Seriously. It looks better. And Mozilla is a better browser.

As always, advice/commentary/criticism is welcome

Pens waddle home down 2-0

2008-05-26T22:56:00.002-04:00

On Monday night, the Penguins came up empty in game two against the Red Wings, falling 3-0. They are down 2-0 in the series and will go home for games three and four on Wednesday and Saturday. Winning game three is absolutely imperative.

If the Penguins made any adjustments rather than subbing Roberts in and Laraque out, it didn't look like it. They still looked lethargic. They still looked about a step slower than Detroit. They still looked frustrated and exhausted. They still couldn't get the puck deep. They still missed the few quality chances that they had. Ryan Malone and Maid Marian Hossa still looked confused.

It isn't so much that the Penguins were playing like crap. The Wings have had some unbelievably good defense. Osgood hasn't really had to work that hard, and even when a shot gets through, he paddles it down to a sea of red sweaters. They're keeping the Pens forwards out of the house. They're dominating the neutral ice play, they're getting to all the loose pucks behind the net. The Red Wings blueliners have even drawn defensive zone penalties.

Through two games, the Penguins have only mustered 41 shots on goal. This isn't going to get it done.

For game three, the Pens are gonna have to juggle the line combinations. They're gonna have to find a way to get the puck through the neutral zone. They're gonna have to find a way to keep it deep. They're going to have to take some shots and put some big bodies down low. In short, they're gonna have to figure out how to play against the Wings suffocating defense.

On top of all this is the most obvious thing. They're gonna have to find the net.

The good news is that Pittsburgh has won 16 straight games at the Igloo. The last time they lost there was a 2-1 shootout loss to the Sharks way back on February 24.

Pens hotel has false alarm

2008-05-26T17:29:00.003-04:00

Last night in Detroit, the fire alarm at the Penguins hotel went off at 1:30 am. The Post-Gazette does not suspect foul play. Whether it was foul play, a routine test, or a false alarm, the point is that the Pens players were roused from their sleep at 1:30 in the morning and forced to evacuate their rooms.

After getting the "all-clear" to go back in the building, there was a hotel-wide announcement 30 minutes later that it was a "false alarm" and that everything was okay. By that point, it was at least 2:00, and Penguins players were still unable to get the much needed sleep before today's morning skate and tonight's game.

None of the Red Wings players were roused from their sleep, but $50 Canadian says their team hotel will have a fire drill of its own when they visit Pittsburgh.

The Post-Gazette also reports that The Mule will play tonight. Even after missing six games, including game one of the SCF, he leads all players with 12 goals this playoff season.

Emma Fleury has been practicing his ice-entering routine after falling flat on his face Saturday.

Spokane Chiefs win Memorial Cup, then break it.

2008-05-25T19:22:00.003-04:00

On Sunday, the Spokane Chiefs defeated the Kitchener Rangers 4-1 to win the Canadian Hockey League Memorial Cup. Drayson Bowman, Carolina's third round pick in the 2007 entry draft, scored the Cup winning goal.

Chiefs netminder Dustin Tokarski put on a remarkable show, making 53 saves, including 25 in the third period.

In a shocking moment, Chiefs captain Chris Bruton dropped the Cup on the ice, breaking it in two pieces. The Kitchener crowd, and the rest of the Chiefs looked on in stunned silence as they figured out what to do. The Cup will be repaired, but I'm sure that Bruton will never be able to live that one down.

Bowman has one more year of eligibility in junior hockey, and will probably play at least one year in Albany. All reports are that he won't be expected to play in Raleigh until at least 2010-11.

Game one: Wings

2008-05-25T09:52:00.002-04:00

M-A Fleury came charging out of the tunnel, leading the Penguins on the ice for game one on Saturday. He fell. This was not a good way to get things started in hostile territory, and the game was already over at that point.

The Pens were pretty sharp for the majority of the first period, but both teams went into the first intermission with no score.

After that, the Pens were lifeless. Between the blue lines, they were sluggish and mistake-prone. They never really did get the puck deep in the Detroit zone, and even when they did, they didn't do anything.

Detroit capitalized on a couple of Penguin miscues, and after building a two-goal lead, they clamped down defensively. It was frustrating to watch, but very impressive.

At the end of it all, the final tally was 4-0.

Pens need to work on a lot of things before Monday's game two.

More details later.

Maggie makes her pick, Pens doomed

2008-05-24T14:00:00.003-04:00

Recently, TSN's Maggie the Monkey made her Stanley Cup Finals pick. She picked the Penguins to win, which may be their demise. In 2006, she wrongly picked Edmonton. In 2007, she wrongly picked Ottawa. This is meant to be fun, and certainly has no weight, but her track record in picking the Stanley Cup champion is a horrible 0-2.

Last year, her overall picks were 8-7. In 2006, she was 9-6. This season, she is 8-6 so far. By comparison, in the same time frame, I have been a perfect 2-0 in my finals picks, and a perfect 6-0 in my conference final picks. I was 9-6 overall in 2006, 9-6 overall last season, and 8-6 so far this season.

Just to re-iterate, I am rooting for the Penguins. However, I think that the experience and the overwhelming offensive firepower and the stronger defense will prevail for the Wings. They might not be as prepared for the Pens as they should be. The Pens will make it tough, but I think the Wings will prevail in 6. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Pittsburgh wins game one, but I would be (pleasantly) surprised if the Pens win the series.

In particular, I think the experience of two Stanley Cup wins by Chris Osgood will give them the crucial edge in nets.

The Mule, who has been out of the lineup for five games, and will miss game one of the Finals, is still leading the playoffs in goals scored with 12. Henrik Zetterberg is right behind him with 11. Pavel Datsyuk has 9. Maid Marian Hossa and Gino Malkin have nine apiece for the Pens. The Kid has just 4, but has been an assist machine with 17 of those to pace all players.

Each team has their weapons, but I think that Detroit just has too many of them. Still, I'll be rooting for the Pens.

Canes, Gleason close to deal.

2008-05-22T15:47:00.002-04:00

The N&O is reporting that the Hurricanes are coming awfully close to dotting all the Is and crossing all the Ts on a contract extension with defenseman Tim Gleason.

Gleason, who arrived with Eric "Frenchy" Belanger from Los Angeles in the Jack "effing" Johnson deal, has often been Carolina's best blueliner. That trade had a lot of people scratching their heads and lamenting the fact that the Canes didn't get more. I've been in support of it the whole time, and Gleason's play has been more than enough to justify the trade. People often forget that that trade also involved the WAY overpriced Oleg Tverdovsky. Carolina shed more than $2M in salary with that deal, so that worked out pretty well, too.

"Frenchy" never panned out here and was traded to Nashville, then to Atlanta, then signed out of free agency by Minnesota.

Gleason has been a resounding success in Carolina, and a favorite of hardcore fans. The speculation is that he will double his 2008 salary of $1.175M. He will be well worth it. With Glen Wesley and/or Bret Hedican out of the picture next fall, his role will likely be increased. His game has gotten better every day since joining the Canes. At 25 years old, the native Michigander is still very young, especially by defenseman's standards. He has the potential to blossom into an elite defenseman. He also has a bit of offensive upside as well.

My initial thought was that he would get a "small" raise and be offered a two-year contract. That would take him to the end of his RFA eligibility. If his salary is doubled, as the N&O article suggests, I wouldn't be surprised or upset. However, that kind of money is pretty much predicated upon Hedican and his $2.432M leaving Raleigh.

It seems that both sides are hoping that Timmy stays in Carolina. The only point where the negotiations are getting held up is the length of the contract. If you ask me, I'd say to get him locked in for as long as possible.

Assuming Hedican and Glen Wesley aren't re-signed, Gleason makes four defensemen. German Dennis Seidenberg will probably be re-signed, but they'll need to go to free agency or trade to get at least one more.

Tidying up

2008-05-21T17:14:00.002-04:00

Don't hate me 'coz I'm lazy. Things have gotten to be a little bit of a mess around here. The template is getting a little tired, the masthead is boring and the blogroll is out of order.

After reading a post over at BFLOBLOG, I was inspired to go through ye olde blogrolle, and I was shocked into shame to discover that no fewer than eight of the blogs over there are no longer active. It saddens me that some of the really great ones (namely Sabre Rattling) are no longer doing business.

I used to do a better job of tidying up, but I've slipped up recently. I don't wanna look like a dunce linking to blogs that aren't active anymore. I'd rather let my writing speak for my duncehood.

I know it's difficult since most teams aren't playing anymore, but it's not that hard to find something to blog about, even during the offseason. Bloggers who fail to post anything at all in over a month are put into question. Those whose teams were still alive when they disappeared are banished

I'm always open to adding a blog to the blogroll. I just don't link to cricket blogs or soccer blogs or golf blogs or basketball blogs. Try as you may, I won't add you if your blog is one of those, or if you contact me via bulk email asking for linkage.

If you write a hockey blog that I don't link, zip me an email or a comment. If you know of one that I should be linking to, please do the same. As long as the writing is decent and the updates are frequent, I'll usually add it.

If anyone feels like using their awesome creative and artistic abilities to design a banner/header/masthead for me, please do.

Maybe during the summer, I'll spruce up the place with a new blogger template. I just feel like rearranging the furniture.

Yamaguchi wins, Hedican can make decision

2008-05-20T23:13:00.004-04:00

1000th post!!!
For a very long time, I've been waiting for the day that Bret Hedican would announce his retirement. I might finally get my wish in the very very near future.

Last summer, everyone was under the impression that Hedican had a "player option" on his contract that could be exercised. Turns out, it was never up in the air, and Hurricanes fans let out a groan when it was officially announced that he would return to the Canes for the 2007-08 season. Now, his contract is up, and everyone hoped he would make a decision when the Canes were eliminated from playoff contention on the last day of the season. However, his wife was involved with that "Dancing with the Stars" thing, and he needed to be with her.

Kristi won the DWTS championship and a really uncomely trophy, which will most likely be hidden in the couple's attic. Now Bret can make that decision that we've all been waiting for. Given that he's already said that the couple will move to California this summer, that's a pretty good indicator that he won't be playing for the Hurricanes. He'll either try the free agent waters or (more likely) retire.

The Hurricanes will have a lot of work to do to shore up the blue line this summer, and shedding Hedican's $2.432M salary will be a step in the right direction. Nic Wallin, Joe Corvo and Frantisek Kaberle are under contract. "Snuggles" Tanabe is under contract, but will probably never return from concussion-related issues. Glen Wesley is a RFA-to-be, and will wait till the last second to sign a one-year deal. Tim Gleason is a UFA-to-be, and simply MUST be re-signed. Dennis Seidenberg is also a UFA-to-be. I'll take him or leave him.

There's work to be done, and the sooner Hedican hangs up his skates, the sooner JR can formulate a game plan for working the free agent/trade market.

Congratulations to Kristi on winning that absurd competition!

My favorite memory of Kristi is from the 2002-03 season. Mid-way through the season, I "stole" some dude's girlfriend, and by virtue of doing so, I took his seat next to her at Hurricanes games. That was my first year in section 112. I kept noticing Kristi Yamaguchi over in section 113, several rows behind us. I never did figure out why a player's wife and an Olympic gold medalist had such a mediocre seat. Certainly a worse seat than mine. I never saw her at a game after that season.

I would imagine that Hedican and Jim Rutherford will get together some time this week and put us all out of our misery. It's been a nice run, but it's been time for him to retire for too long.

This is, by the way, the 1000th post at Red and Black Hockey