Defenceman Aaron Ward announces his retirement.

James Mirtle, via his Twitter account.

"I'm not sure yet where I'm going to play. I'm negotiating with several teams. Of course we're mostly talking about money. Phoenix, Anaheim and Carolina in particular."

Free agent defenseman Lukas Krajicek, talking to Broad Street Hockey

Cullen to Ottawa for Picard and a 2nd. Done.

Bob McKenzie on Twitter

Does anyone know who belongs to this tattoo? Someone emailed me and asked.  thanks.

Canes tattoo

MO AND ROE HAS GOT TO GO !!! OUR DEFENSE SUCKS !!!

"There will be players in that B group that we’d like to get in a game but just won’t get a game because of the number. At the same time, I would rather sacrifice that than play nine exhibition games and spend the first five games just filling holes with the guys and saying ‘Let’s wait until the last two or three until we get serious.’"

http://hurricanes.nhl.com/club/news.htm?id=498867 So it seems Mr. Maurice may have had something to do with the sharp reduction in preseason games this year.

"It's easy to see Staal being a point-per-game player for the next decade." "[Ward] has the ability and temperament to be a star, but he needs to display it all the time."

From The Hockey News Yearbook Top 50 players feature. Staal was ranked the No. 8 player in the NHL (behind only Alex Ovechkin, Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Pavel Datsyuk, Zdeno Chara, Roberto Luongo and Ryan Getzlaf), while Ward came in at No. 46, eighth among goalies. Staal ranked 19th last year, while Ward is appearing on the list for the first time.

Erik Cole re-signs with Hurricanes for two years. 2.8 million the first year and 3 million the next. More to follow.

http://www.canescountry.com

The Carolina Hurricanes just announced the signing of Jussi Jokinen to a two year deal. Jokinen will be paid 1.5 million next year and 1.9 the following. More to come.

http://hurricanes.nhl.com/

Buffalo concerned about possible franchise in Hamilton "The way that issue would play out in this case is: they want to go from Arizona to Hamilton, and that would be in the Buffalo Sabres' area," Anzivino said. "If the NHL can establish that this is going to hurt the Buffalo franchise-- which you and I both know isn't that strong, anyway -- then the NHL may be able to persuade the judge not to do it." National Post