It is the morning after (signing Alex Semin that is) and most Canes fans are basking in an aura with little Stanley Cups dancing in their heads. This is a surprising statement from a number of perspectives. Who thought out there that the Hurricanes Universe would spin so positive today compared to less than a year ago? The fan confidence meter back then was not a pretty sight and was lower than anyone had seen in a long time. Some of that may still be present. There are some fans on this site who are not as caught up with what has happened recently and very well do not exhibit as much confidence as others .

From strictly a fairness perspective judging a GM’s work effort could start and end at the opening of training camp. However, some consider different cycles more relevant and that is ok…..you have to pick a point and look at the results. We are not to the end of Jim Rutherford’s one year work cycle with this cycle period yet but we are close.

The other notion is you cannot gauge the work of a GM until AFTER the following season is completed so from that perspective the work cycle for our Jim Rutherford actually started the day after the season ended in 2012 and will come full cycle after the 2012-13 season ends. Both measurements are appropriate although the latter does make a lot of sense. This period of time will be used as the measure in this poll. I thought it would be appropriate to poll everyone on how they felt about the work of Jim Rutherford as the Carolina Hurricanes GM in this interim period. We can certainly follow up with another poll after the season ends, ask the same questions but have the benefit of a full cycle of work.

I don’t need to provide a retrospect here since we are talking about recent history from the end of last season (April, 2012) till today. There have already been a number of actions taken by JR and some are good but some are also puzzling or maybe viewed as bad with some fans. Keep in mind that we are only looking at a very narrow period of time. It is understood that if we looked at the last 2 years or the last 5 years or the last 10 years your view might be different. This poll is designed ONLY to look at the period of time since April, 2012.

Rate the work of Hurricanes GM Rutherford since the end of last season (April, 2012) using the following poll questions. Comments can be entered at the end of this fan post in support of your views and vote.