Jokinen sent to the desert

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!

Brind'Amour, Ladd, Commodore return to the ice

On Thursday night, the Hurricanes will return to Southeast Division play, and three of their players will make their return to the ice. Rod Brind'Amour missed one game with the flu, Mike Commodore missed 12 with a broken finger and Andrew Ladd missed four with a reassignment and a bout with the flu. With Chad LaRose and David Tanabe out with concussions and Craig Adams suspended, they will be needed.

The N&O reports that the Canes will roll with 11 forwards and seven defensemen tonight, which is a pretty common occurrence under Peter Laviolette. He's keeping mum on who the starting goaltender will be, but Johnny Crackers looked fantastic against the Leafs and got the job done against Philly, earning two wins in a row. I'm given to saying things like "You shouldn't change your horses midstream" and "Ride a goalie while he's hot". I wouldn't be surprised to see him in nets tonight. Given his struggles against his former team, however, I'd bet my paycheck that we'll see Cam Ward against the Bolts on Saturday.

The Hurricanes have won three of the four meetings between the teams so far this season. All have been good games.

Carolina's main focus will be on Olli "Cane Killa" Jokinen. He has enjoyed a ton of success against the Canes over the years and has tallied six (1/5) points against the Canes in four games this season. If this guy played for my team, I would love him. But he doesn't, and I don't.

Cory Stillman (3/2) Rod Brind'Amour (2/3)and Matt Cullen (1/4) each have five points versus the Kitties this year. Justin Williams (2/2) and Ray Whitney (1/3) each have four.

Puck drop will be at 7:30.

don't forget to set your clocks, dvrs

Today marks the end of Daylight Savings Time in the United States and Canada. Set your clocks back one hour when you go to bed tonight. Officially, the change takes place at 2:00 am Sunday. Don't forget. If you forget, you'll be an hour early for whatever you do on Sundays.

Also, remember to set your DVRs. Tonight's game between the Kitties and Hurricanes isn't carried by Carolina's TV network, so you'll have to find Florida's feed as "game 5" in your Center Ice package.

Who am I kidding? Everyone will be watching Leafs against Habs on HNIC.

Anyway, Carolina will be looking to exact revenge agains the Kitties for what happened Wednesday. I say they'll get it.

Crucial to this game is shutting down Olli "Cane Killa" Jokinen. He has tallied 19 points (8/11) against Carolina in the last 9 meetings. His domination of the Canes is way more pronounced than Erik Cole's domination of the Habs. Except that of those nine games, Carolina won seven.

Eric Staal has a four game point streak. Ray Whitney and Matt Cullen each have a five game streak going, and Cory Stillman has a six game streak.

Johnny Crackers will be starting in nets for the Hurricanes while Craig Anderson will get the nod for the Kitties.

Florida beat Buffalo last night, and did not practice today. Carolina will hope to come roaring out of the gates to take advantage of the weary visitors. They will hope to keep their foot on the throttle for the entire game.

Tim Peel and Bill McCreary will be the referee tandem.

One third thing to make sure you do. Watch or record Saturday Night Live. Feist will be playing. If her appearances on other shows are a barometer, she'll play "1234", and will have a chorus of people on stage with her from Broken Social Scene and Grizzly Bear and some other cool folks too. I imagine she'll also play "My Moon My Man". If you get the chance to see her live, do it. It's also fun to watch her on TV.

Carolina wins meaningless game, Olli Jokinen writes a check his ass can't cash

Last Sunday, after Carolina snatched victory from the Panthers, many of the players angrily accused Carolina of being divers. It was the second time in a row that Carolina won a game against Florida on a power play goal in overtime.

Among other things, Jokinen told the Miami Herald that in order for the Panthers to beat Carolina they would

``have to play within the rules, and sign five or six guys who can dive every time you touch them.''

Then he went on to say that they wouldn't let it happen again. At the time, Carolina still had a chance to make the playoffs. The Panthers were ruled out and he at least wanted to spoil Carolina. He stopped short of using the words "Guarantee" and "Win", but that's pretty much what he was doing when he said:

'We have to make sure . . . they don't make the playoffs,'' Jokinen said. ``We have to get two points out of there.

``This team has stolen so many points from us, we have to win that last game and make sure they don't go anywhere. I'd rather see Tampa and Atlanta make it than this team.''

So anyway, among the silver linings that can be found in missing the playoffs, there's this:


Carolina overcame a 4-1 third period defecit to force overtime against the Cats. Carolina got regulation goals from Eric Staal, Erik Cole and two from David Tanabe. Florida got their goals from Ville Peltonen, Olli Jokinen, Jay Bouwmeester and Marty Gelinas.

Early in the overtime period, Bryan Allen was called for kneeing, which gave the Canes a man advantage. It was Allen's hook on Sunday that made Belfour lose his composure, which gave the Canes the two man advantage. I don't know about the kneeing call, but Carolina couldn't convert. In fact, Allen had a chance to wipe it all away when he was awarded a penalty shot just after coming out of the box. He missed his chance, though. As time wound down in regulation, Allen found a way to be the goat anyway. He turned the puck over to Rod Brind'Amour in neutral ice, and the Captain cashed in on the breakaway gift.

Unfortunately, Ed Belfour wasn't in nets for the Panthers.

More stuff about the game, including pictures later.

Canes emerge from Twilight Zone Fort Lauderdale with overtime win.

On Tuesday night, the Hurricanes traveled down to sunny Fort Lauderdale, took a detour through the Twilight Zone, and escaped with a 3-2 overtime victory over the Panthers. In some ways, it was reminiscent of the Canes 3-2 overtime victory in Florida on December 23. In others, it was like nothing I've ever seen, and the League office needs to take notice.

While the Canes won, they were unable to gain any ground in the SE division because first place Atlanta was in a shooting gallery against the Kings' two ECHL-calibre goaltenders. After Dan Cloutier and Mathieu Garon both went down with injuries, they were forced to dig very deep in their organization's depth chart to find Japanese sensation Yutaka Fukufugi and Barry Brust. I'm not exaggerating about their talent level. Something about shooting fish in a barrel.

Scott Walker gave the Canes at early lead at 10:49 of the first. During a power play sequence, an Erik Cole shot sailed wide, then took a strange bounce off the end wall glass after hitting a support stanchion. The puck caromed out in front of the left post, where Walker simply tucked it in. Ed "Billion Dollar" Belfour had no idea where the puck was. Cole got the first assist, and Rod Brind'Amour got the second.

Several hooking penalties were assessed against the Panthers during the rest of the first and the second, but the Canes were unable to cash in. Credit the Cats blueline for taking away chances. At one point during the second, Belfour got lucky when Justin Williams clanged a single shot of BOTH posts.

In the third, the Cats came to life. Olli "Cane Killah" Jokinen got an easy one at 5:56 to tie it at one. A shot from Rostislav Olesz was stopped by Crackers, but the rebound went into the low slot where Jokinen was waiting for it. Grahame didn't stand a chance. The secondary assist went to Joel Kwiatkowski, who I've never heard of.

The great controversy came at 10:16 of the third, when Nathan Horton was awarded a goal after the on-ice call was "no goal" and that the puck had been hit with a high stick. I'll cover this in a separate post.
Officially, a five-on-three goal by Nathan Horton from Cane Killah and Ruslan Salei at 10:16.

After several minutes of delay, play continued, and although the Canes were furious, they didn't let the perceived injustice take them off their game. Quite the opposite. They kept composure, forced overtime, and won.

Erik Cole got the game-tying goal on a wrist shot from the high slot at 13:34. Dennis Seidenberg brought the puck over the blue line, fed it to Cory Stillman, then went toward the net. The Cats defenders had to pay attention to him instead of double teaming Cole, and #26 was able to beat "The Eagle" badly five hole. It was Cole's 20th, and the helpers came from Stillman and Seidenberg.

Overtime didn't last long, and like the previous visit to Florida, the extra frame featured a penalty to a Cats defenseman. Last time, it was a bad hooking call against Jay Bouwmeester. This time, it was a legitimate holding call against Mike Van Ryn at 1:30 of the extra frame. Van Ryn exploded, smashing his stick over the crossbar (his own goal) and proceeded to smash his stick against the walls of the penalty box. For some reason, there wasn't an additional unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. I've seen players penalized for far less. It didn't matter anyway, because Carolina only needed 17 seconds of said penalty.

At 1:47 of the bonus frame, Viva held the puck at the left dot, faked, faked, waited, then fired a wrist shot into the near side of the net, giving the Canes the win. Ray Whitney and Rod Brind'Amour got the assists. It's Viva's seventh game-winning goal, which ties him for first in the League, and his 10th power play goal. He's now got goals in four of the last five games. At 23 goals, he's well on his way to matching or bettering his career high 31 goals last year.

It may have been a surprise, but Justin Williams is certainly worthy of his All-Star appointment.

In a few minutes, I'll have a post about the Horton goal.

The "official" three stars of the game were Erik Cole (third) Olli Jokinen (second), and Justin Williams (first). The Fox Sports South crew and the RBH three stars line up the same way:
Third Star Olli Jokinen, FLA -- goal, assist
Second Star Erik Cole, CAR -- goal, assist
First Star Justin Williams, CAR -- game winning goal.