Taking a quick gander around the hockey newsworld.....
San Jose coach, Ron Wilson was fired yesterday. Wilson had one of the best regular season records in the NHL for the past 3 years and made it to the 2nd round of the playoffs each of those years.
Eventually though, that just wasn't good enough.
There are a lot of quality coaches and players out there who have never won the Cup. The Carolina franchise can consider themselves very fortunate that they don't fall into that category, but this leads to an interesting question.
Is it better to have at least won the Cup once, even if you have not made the playoffs in 4 out the past 5 years, surrounding the Cup win? Or is it better to be a consistent winner, making the playoffs every year, even if you end up falling short of your quest for the Cup?
Financially speaking, it's probably better to be in the playoffs every year, but on the other hand, I doubt anyone in Carolina would trade that Cup winning experience for anything.
Bottom line, another quality coach is hitting the open market and it would only be logical to assume that one or two of these guys will end up coaching in the Southeast Division. Things won't be getting any easier next year, for sure.
The Hurricanes signed defenseman Bryan Rodney to a contract yesterday. Rodney was one of the River Rats best blueliners at year end, so they rewarded him with a decent 2-way deal. It remains to be seen if he will ever play meaningful minutes in Raleigh, but we will see what he looks like in training camp.
Team USA beat on Team Norway, 9-1 yesterday in World Championship play. Team Canada took care of Finland, 6-3 to wrap up first place in their grouping. The Americans have a rematch against Finland tomorrow in the quarterfinals of the tournament.
Hopefully, there will be no illegal goals in that game.
Tim Gleason did not play in the game against Norway, but there is still no reported status of any injury. Hopefully, he sat out the game as a precaution and not because of anything serious, due to the cheap hit by Olli Jokinen.
In the NHL semi-finals, the Red Wings are up 3-0 against Dallas and the Pens are up 2-0 against the Flyers. Is it just me, or are these series boring as all get out? I just haven't been able to get into either of them.
A Red Wings - Penguins final would be most excellent though.
Finally, the Hurricanes recently posted a new job listing on the NHL job site. How would you like to be a "Corporate Sales Executive"? It sounds like this position would be responsible for drumming up new corporate support.
If you want to see more details, check out this link.
If a Canes Country reader ends up getting hired, don't forget about us little people and the dire need of a Blogger's Box!
Motorhead