The Other Off-Season Game Plan - The Carolina Hurricanes Edition

In which Ogie gives another viewpoint of what needs to be done in the off-season, flagrantly lifting the idea off Scott Cullen of TSN. Only, without having any statistics to back up his plan...

The Carolina Hurricanes AKA The Arizona Coyotes of the East

Remember when the Carolina Hurricanes were relevant? No? Maybe because they never were. Ever since their move down the coast from Hartford, Carolina has lived on borrowed time. Yes, they won a Stanley Cup but even that was in one of the most boring years in recent memory. The biggest headline of the year was Steve Irwin dying (which was admittedly very tragic) and the year Facebook debuted to a mass audience.

If you are too lazy to click, it was in 2006, the year after the NHL owners locked out the players for a year, causing an avalanche of players to retire and find real work, including a handful of decent European goalies who decided to stay home; Irbe, Salo, Turek, Cechmanek are all familiar names to those who remember the dark days. Besides a lot of fringe players, former All-Star Players put out to pasture included Mark Messier, Brett Hull, Adam Oates, Scott Stevens, Al MacInnis, Vinnie Damphousse, Steve Thomas, Igor Larionov, Cliff Ronning and Felix Potvin.

Ron Francis also retired before the 2006 season. He is often regarded as the person people are least likely to know is the 4th leading scorer all-time and 2nd only to Wayne Gretzky in assists ended his career with Carolina and is currently part-owner and general manager of the Hurricanes.

I tell you all this because it's way more interesting than talking about the present-day Hurricanes.

Head Coach 

Yes. They appear to be sticking with Bill Peters, so that's a step up from many of the other teams the Hurricanes would be considered competitive with. Nobody expects much of this team at the moment so consider that job security. It would take a pretty long losing streak to put his job in jeopardy. Or if he had a Jon Tortorella type personality. But he doesn't.

Seriously, how could anyone fire this guy? 

Forwards

Well, there's 1/2 the Stall brothers in Carolina so they have that going for them. Neither had a stellar year so they have that going against them. Th younger of the two, Jordan, played only 46 games and contributed 6 goals. Captain Eric is in the last year of his whopping $8.25 million contract and if you don't think he's going to be having a better year, better call his accountant.

One also pays less in razors.

Jeff Skinner, if healthy, provides a decent 2nd liner. Victor Fask is also someone to consider in your hockey pool if +/- isn't a category. Nathan Gerbe, the shortest guy in the league (I think) should be able to provide a bit more offense this year as well and let's just pretend we don't remember Alex Semin in also on this team.

Nathan Gerbe is the one on the right...

Defense

Jean-Michael Liles and Ron Hainsey are the stalwart veterans. Justin Faulk is a future All-Star. But that's about it. Anybody recall anyone else on the blue line?

Goalies

Cam Ward is still living off his Stanley Cup win in 2006 and Carolina has never made a threatening move towards suggesting he will not be the continuing #1 goaltender. That's a problem.


My #1 Priority - Actual Hurricanes if I were to move there.
My #2 Priority - Deciding whether to trade or sign Eric Staal before the Trade Deadline
My #3 Priority - Getting a strong defensive corps and finding a goalie to challenge Ward for #!