The Hurricanes head out to the highway next for a short two game road trip. They will start off in Chicago for a contest Wednesday night that has many twists of fate mixed into the hockey game itself. Sergei Samsonov and Tuomo Ruutu both return whence they came just a short time ago. Craig Adams, Kevyn Adams, and Andrew Ladd get to face their former team as well. Think they might be fired up?
As has been mentioned several times before, Samsonov has turned his season completely around by scoring all of his 12 goals and 24 of his 28 points for the Hurricanes, after Chicago had left him for as much as dead when they put him on the waiver wire twice. Ruutu was once their prized possession, but his development never materialized the way they had hoped it would and the Hawks put him in a list of players that they wanted to move before the trade deadline. They were more than happy to deal him for Ladd, another player who hadn't quite lived up to his potential.
Craig Adams was more or less given to Chicago for a bag of pucks, (future considerations), and Kevyn Adams ended up in the Windy City indirectly, via a trade with Phoenix. Unlike Samsonov and Ruutu, who partied like it was 1999 when they left Chicago, Andrew Ladd and the Adams family were not happy campers when they left Tobacco Road. They will certainly be out to make their presence known, which should make for a very interesting game. I will post more pre-game analysis after lunch.
In other news.....
Congratulations to Carolina General Manager Jim Rutherford and his wife Leslie, who had a baby boy yesterday morning. I would think that this should make him less apt to want to move to Toronto, if he was ever thinking about it. It probably doesn't matter anyway because my guess is that the Leafs will offer Brian Burke the keys to the city and anything else that he wants, to entice him to take the GM job there. Burkie's ego might just fit in the "center of the hockey universe".
Luke is reporting in LSB that David Tanabe is still suffering from symptoms of post-concussion syndrome and not only probably won't be back this season, but quite possibly might be unable to play hockey again, period. That is certainly sad news. I wonder if players have some type of disability insurance to cover possibilities like that? David is under contract for next year, but after that I wonder what happens?
Atlanta GM, Don Waddell has been given a vote of confidence by Thrashers ownership and will keep his job at least for another year. Color me surprised. Don't get me wrong, I think Waddell is a nice guy, but what exactly has he done to deserve keeping his job over the past 10 years in Loserville? It looks like more of the same in Atlanta for at least another year, and the rest of the division certainly won't be complaining.
Waddell's first task should be to find a decent new coach. Wouldn't it be something if Toronto fired Maurice and then Waddell picked him up for the "Trash?" Stranger things have happened.
Finally, one of my favorite owners, Ted Leonsis got into a discussion of sorts about bloggers again, this time with blogging buddy Mark Cuban. Ted starts out by saying...
" I am for total open access to all that support a basic bloggers bill of rights. I believe that we need to jumpstart the next generation of sports coverage and help activate as much online Web 2.0 coverage for teams as possible. This benefits our web savvy consumer and fan base. I believe there are now close to 2,000 blogs and sites dedicated to the NHL. The NHL is growing in popularity and its ratings are up as are its revenues. Perhaps there is a coincidence here?"
Give 'em hell Ted! You can see the rest of the article using this link if you are interested.
Audioslave