Would the Carolina Hurricanes trade Chad LaRose?
Of course anything is possible, especially for a team in a tailspin like the Hurricanes. A source told me yesterday that scouts from a Western Conference team attended a recent game with the primary intent to evaluate the Carolina forward.
Keep in mind that this is a rumor, it has not been confirmed by anyone on the team.
But it should not surprise anyone that management is almost in crisis mode at this point. They might feel the need to do something to shake things up, and LaRose is a popular component in the locker room. Trading him would send a message and might shake things to the very core.
After scoring a career high 19 goals and 12 assists with a +6 last season, LaRose has yet to score a goal in 13 games this year. He has two assists and is -4. The winger just signed a two year contract worth $3.4 million this past summer, a deal that GM Jim Rutherford might be regretting.
Rutherford spoke with Paul Branecky this morning.
"You try to re-sign everybody and you re-sign players, and they get in a totally different position in their career than they’ve ever been," said Rutherford, who re-signed Erik Cole, Chad LaRose, Jussi Jokinen and Tuomo Ruutu from last year’s team. "Maybe we should have had a little bigger change. Maybe we shouldn’t have gone with as many veteran players as we did. I don’t have the answers for it, nobody does, and everybody can guess. Obviously, whatever I did didn’t work."
His displeasure did not stop there.
"I’ve seen enough to where I’m as disappointed as I’ve ever been in a team," he added. "I still know that there’s enough here to make that turn, but when you watch what we’ve all watched here in the last week, it makes you wonder if it’s going to turn."
Management is firing some warning shots for the players to take note of. Will it make any difference?