After a miserable November that has now carried over into to December, the Canes head north and west for a 4-game road trip through Canada. These are not the trips you look forward to when you first lay eyes on the schedule during the summer, but this particular trip could not come at a better time for the Carolina Hurricanes. They are now about a week into Kirk Muller's coaching with an 0 for 3 to show for it. The team just burned through a pretty favorable stretch of heavy home schedule and used it to plummet to the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings. And it's not like it is mid-March and you just ride it out and look forward to the draft. The season is only about one-third complete.

The team desperately needs a reset and a new beginning for the season. So 10 days on the road together with some practice time and a bunch of together time as teammates and with 2 new coaches is exactly what the doctor ordered right now.

At this point, the team desperately needs a spark of some kind:
--A scoring surge by Eric Staal (who has been putting up points of late to give him credit) that puts the team on his back and leads them to victory?
--A vocal outburst by regularly mild-mannered Cam Ward or maybe Brandon Sutter that jolts everyone's system and forces a higher level of play?
--A trade or 2 to shake things up and make it clear that small-market team can just mail in 2/3 of a season from this point forward?
--One of those nasty games where guys like Joslin, Gleason, Allen, etc. bring a bunch of nastiness and the gloves fly off a few times because of it?

When you are down this far, I just think it becomes harder and harder to just gradually climb your way out of it. There usually needs to be that spark or turning point. I keep looking for it, but so far it is nowhere to be found.

What say you Canes fans? Have you already started doing the research on who the top 5 picks are for next summer's draft? Is there still hope that the team turns it around and claws its way up the standings? Are you still frequenting the RBC Center despite the recent pain?

For a quick heads up when I post a blog, follow me on Twitter at CarolinaMatt63.

Go Canes!

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