Why is Erik Cole mentioned so often in trade rumors? A couple of years ago his name was brought up as possibly going to Ottawa in exchange for Martin Havlat. Earlier this summer he was supposedly going to Edmonton as part of a three way trade with Philadelphia. Even though both general managers said that there was no truth to that rumor, his name was brought up a couple more times and then again yesterday by Eklund as being a target of Vancouver. There's never any rumors about Justin Williams, Ray Whitney, Scott Walker, or others, it's always Erik Cole. You know the old saying, where there's smoke, there's fire? Could that be the case here? The only way I would possibly consider trading Erik right now is if the Canes got a top notch defenseman in return. By top notch, I mean top pairing. Even then, some Caniacs would be ready to burn down the RBC if that happened. Trading him right now would be a horrendous PR move.
All bets are off though if the Canes start out this season slowly and Cole isn't scoring. Rutherford will be pressured into making changes and Cole's 4 million dollar per year salary will seem like a lot of money. Erik would be the logical sacrificial lamb in that case. Hopefully, it won't get to that point! If I was GM, I'd hold off on trading any one of the top forwards right now. Let's see what happens when they start out the year healthy!
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