Pre-Season Review / Season Pre-View Part 3
See parts 1 and 2 here:
Atlantic - Crosby, Malkin, Staal
Northeast - Forward vs. Defence Salaries
Southeast Division: Carolina’s Pre-Season Woes
The defending Stanley Cup Champions limped to a 1-4 record in the pre-season, struggling with injuries even before they stepped on to the ice, and trading away their top defensive prospect in what many are calling a panic move by a team desperate to replenish its blueline.
Frantisek Kaberle, the premier offensive defenceman on the team and the man who scored the Stanley Cup winning goal last year, is expected to miss about half the season. Ditto for Cory Stillman, one of only a handfull of players ever to win Stanely Cups in consecutive years (the lockout year is dead to all true hockey fans :P) for different teams. Added to their loss were the off-season departure of Martin Gerber, Matt Cullen and Aaron Ward, as well as the two rented players Doug Weight and Mark Recchi, and Carolina is looking decidedly thin.
Carolina led in 22 goals in its 5 games and managed only 14. They got to watch as every single team in their division managed to pick up at least 2 and a half times as many points. Time to panic?
No, not quite yet. Let’s keep a few things in mind here:
- The loss of Kaberle and Stillman aren’t indefinate. Both players will return to the team and will greatly help the team when they need it most (stretch run).
- Pre-season sucks. No other way to say it. The pre-season is over and thankfully can now be thrown directly where it belongs - out of sight and out of mind.
- Despite their losses over the summer, Carolina still boasts Rod Brind’Amour, Eric Staal, Erik Cole and more. They will not be as deep a team as they were last year, but last year they pretty well defined what depth is in the post-salary cap NHL, so that’s no big surprise.
- Trading away Jack Johnson was a better deal than many are giving the Canes credit for. Johnson had expressed his intent to return to College and may even finish his degree and use up his eligibility to play College hockey while doing so. This could put Johnson back into the draft in 4 years! Carolina managed to dump Tverdosky’s hefty salary and acquire Eric Belanger and Tim Gleason, both young players who will immediately impact the lineup. If - and that’s always a capital-I-capital-F IF with young players - Johnson turns out to be as good as the Kings hope, Carolina may end up looking back and cringing on this deal. But that time, if ever it arrives, is years away.
Question marks remain - notably in goal, where Cam Ward must now face a full 82 game season with a heavy burden on his very young shoulders - but the Hurricanes whethered to storm of post-glory free agency about as well as could be expected.