Questions with no good answers

By Brian LeBlanc
NCSportsTalk.com - Puck Drops
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Far be it for me to sit here pontificating on what the Hurricanes should do, now that they sit at 5-15-5 with over a quarter of the season gone, back in last place overall in the NHL, and the day after the team blew a 4-1 lead with 15 minutes to go to lose 6-4 to the Atlanta Thrashers.

That's what Jim Rutherford gets paid the big money to decide.  Frankly, I like my scenario of sitting in my living room watching college football considerably better.

The body language in the locker room last night indicated that the Hurricanes believe that the day of reckoning is at hand, and jobs (not to mention potential new contracts) are now at stake.  One day after Thanksgiving, and Rutherford is already reduced to making a decision he never thought he would make this season, let alone before the end of November.

The scuttlebutt among the fanbase runs along the lines of "trade everybody, waive those you can't trade, and get the River Rats up here". There are problems with the first two statements that prevent the third from happening.  First, unless you're OK with selling players off for ten cents on the dollar (Eric Staal for Wade Belak and a bag of pucks? Sign me up!), there aren't deals to be made, at least not yet. Guys with expiring contracts like Matt Cullen, Joe Corvo and perhaps Ray Whitney (if he's willing to waive his no-trade clause) will be prime bait at the trade deadline, but frankly they don't have much value right now. With so many NHL teams at or near the salary cap ceiling, taking significant salary on will necessarily require significant salary to depart as well. The Canes won't do a deal for the sake of doing a deal, especially given their own precarious salary-cap position.

As for waiving those you can't trade, the bloated salaries among the usual suspects (Cullen, Corvo, Aaron Ward, et al.) rule out anyone claiming them on waivers. And while hypothetically sending them to Albany would relieve the cap crunch, they would still receive their full NHL salary while in the minors. Peter Karmanos doesn't exactly have cash to burn to bury players in the AHL, so putting players on waivers is a solution in search of a problem.

Calling up the likes of Zach Boychuk, Jamie McBain and Drayson Bowman is thus an impossible solution, as the Canes are crunched against both the salary cap and the 23-man roster limit; solving one problem will make the other worse, and neither will allow the Canes to go young across the board.

There's no question that Rutherford needs to do something. But the ironic twist is that the longer the Canes circle the toilet drain, the more their chances improve to get a real game-changing player in the 2010 Draft. Ask the Philadelphia Flyers, whose one-year swan dive earned them James van Riemsdyk, a strong contender for the Calder Trophy. Ask the San Antonio Spurs, who were gifted with Tim Duncan after a franchise-worst season and thereupon turned around to win four NBA titles in the following ten years.  Ironic as it is, the Canes' best chance to reload might be to play poorly the rest of the way.

Am I suggesting the Canes throw games to improve their odds of landing Taylor Hall or Tyler Seguin?  Of course not. There's still professional pride at stake. But the writing is on the wall: to get to 94 points, generally considered a "safe" playoff number, the Canes need 79 points in their final 57 games.  In other words, the Canes - the team currently at 5-15-5 - will need to go 39-17-1 from now until April. Do you see that happening? I sure don't. (Of course, I also said the Canes would hit 100 points this year. Just sayin'.)

What I am saying, though, is that the best possible outcome for future years would be for the Canes to keep the roster intact at least until trade season starts in late January or early February. Any kneejerk moves in the next week would only serve to prolong the inevitable, and probably lead to the same conversations taking place at the same point next season.

Now it's up to Jim Rutherford to earn that paycheck and make the hard decisions. It's not a fun time to be a Hurricane (or a fan), but if the cards are played right the Canes will be back in the conversation next season.

If not, the Tampa Bay Lightning will gladly explain the consequences.