After playing 6 games in 9 days, the Hurricanes have a well deserved couple of days break in their schedule. They took a complete day of rest on Sunday, then they were back to practice yesterday. As Luke points out, for the first time in a long time the whole roster was on the ice, at least for 45 minutes anyway. Scott Walker and Erik Cole were both wearing yellow jerseys but looked no worse for the wear as they skated briskly around the rink. That is until Cole fell down somehow, hurt himself, and left practice early. Not to worry though, he's expected back to practice again today. The next game for Carolina is on Wednesday night when they finally get to play a team outside of their division! The Flyers will be in town and they will certainly be a challenge, but at least it's someone different. Then the day after Thanksgiving, they play Tampa Bay again in a huge game with division leading implications.
Tonight there will be another Canes Corner hosted by Mike Maniscalco, this time at the Falls Tap Room. Cory Stillman will be the guest. If you can't be at the Tap Room, you can listen live on 99.9 The Fan from 6-7 PM. Don't forget that The Fan also has a live feed and you can listen online if you are at a computer. These are usually pretty good interviews! Last week Mike asked Tim Gleason about body slamming someone in a hockey fight, and sure enough Gleason did exactly that to Nathan Horton on Saturday night when both players dropped their gloves!
Nic Wallin and Scott Walker visited the Raleigh Rescue Mission recently and helped serve some food. Carolina Hurricanes.com has a photo gallery up of the event here. Great job guys!
The people over at the NHL Tournament of Logos website were doing a little experimenting with photoshop and completed some sample designs of a new 3rd jersey for Carolina. (these are not official) I'm not crazy about them except for the flag over the state on the black jersey. I could probably live with that design.
A couple of days ago I mentioned that Anaheim put goalie Ilya Bryzgalov on waivers. Phoenix ended up claiming him and played him almost immediately, that same night. So what happened? The goalie went out and got a shut out and won 1-0 in his very first game for the 'Yotes! Remember I also said that Ducks GM Brian Burke didn't release Ilya out of the goodness of his heart, just to give the "poor kid" a chance to play? Sure enough, a deal was made yesterday as the Ducks acquired Brian Sutherby from the Capitals for a 2nd round draft pick in 2009. Good old "Burkie"!
Finally, the Canes Country poll this week asked which of the listed players was the best in the division. Vincent Lecavalier was the winner, just barely over Alex Ovechkin and Ilya Kovalchuk. Each of them are dynamite players. Apparently a few Florida fans read this blog because Olli Jokinen actually received a few votes. This week let's see which of the Canes defensemen you think is having the best year so far.