Shake It Up

For those of us who checked the various hockey news sources on and off all day yesterday looking for possible trade news, shame on us. There was no major trade. There was no minor trade. There wasn’t even any waiver wire action. Someone’s itchy trigger finger must have gotten relief in a different way.

More than likely, none of the other 29 teams in the league are interested in trading for any of our under-performing, injured, or sick defensemen. I can just imagine possible phone conversations between Jim Rutherford and Colorado GM, Francois Giguere.

“Hello Mr. Giguere? Jim Rutherford from the Carolina Hurricanes here, how are you?” “click”

or maybe….

“Hello Fran? Jim Rutherford here, what’s uppppppp? You still shopping John-Michael Liles? Have I got a deal for you! How about we offer you Frantisek Kaberle, David Tanabe, Dennis Seidenberg, and we’ll even throw in Trevor Letowski? Injured? Nooooo, Tanabe and Seidenberg will be healthy again real soon. Kaberle’s shoulder? No worries there, it’s his knee you have to worry about! But Letowski is as healthy as a horse and is a mainstay on our penalty kill. -12 ?? that’s a mis-print. He scored 15 goals once for Columbus, he just needs to go back out west. Hello? Hello?”

Yep, it just might be a little tough to make the magic trade that Carolina really needs.

Speaking of trades, the Canes Country poll recently asked which defenseman would be the best acquisition for the Hurricanes. John-Michael Liles finished with 30% of the vote ahead of Aaron Ward and Rob Blake who had 24% and 21% respectively.

In my opinion Rob Blake would be an interesting pickup, but he would be the most expensive and probably would cost too much. Liles certainly wouldn’t hurt. Well to be honest, any of those guys listed wouldn’t hurt.

One of the readers of the blog left an interesting comment the other day, which leads to another question. In these coming weeks before the trade deadline as Canes General Manager Jim Rutherford looks to make a deal, should he be looking to improve the team long-term, or short term? Should the Canes be buyers or sellers?

If he is going to be a seller, that would mean he has basically given up on this season and is working for the future. But considering that Justin Williams is done for the year and the way that the team has played lately it looks like it will be fortunate to make the playoffs, perhaps he should do that?

He has admitted that the prices will be high for valued players who could help playoff contenders. Maybe he could get Cory Stillman to waive his no-trade? He’d fetch a nice return. Glen Wesley could probably get a draft choice or two. Mike Commodore would get a very nice return as well.

In my opinion, I think that Ruherford will try to improve the team right now if possible, but I doubt that he will mortgage the future like he did in 2006. You don’t want to pull what Atlanta did last year and waste multiple draft choices, just to bomb out of the playoffs early.

Also, I think that making the playoffs is too important to this franchise, financially speaking.   Rutherford isn’t going to worry too much about the future if there is even a hint of possibility that playoff money could be made this year.

But what do you think? What would be best for the team? Should the Canes build for the future before the trade deadline, or trade to make an immediate upgrade for this year? Vote in the poll on the right sidebar, or you can always leave a comment.

Speaking of Justin Williams, here is a link to a story and video about his status put out by WRAL news. Justin is looking pretty good, all things considered.

The Canes are in Ottawa for another game tonight. I’ll leave my normal pre-game thoughts after lunch today.

The Cars