First, to be clear, I am rooting strongly for the new CBA to get ironed out sooner rather than later so that we die-hard hockey fans can exhale knowing that another 2004-05 will not happen.

But for sake of dog days of summer discussion, the Carolina Hurricanes could benefit from a short lockout. They play their first 6 games on the road, so a 2-week lockout would eliminate a long west coast trip that finishes with a game in Boston. Even after they return home, they still play about a 50/50 mix of home versus away. The Canes don't make up for the road heavy start until we flip the calendar to 2013. But alas, trying to make up good scenarios for any kind of lockout is tough sledding...

Looking more generally at the Canes schedule, I see a couple things:

--First, as already noted, the Canes start with 6 on the road mostly out West with 4 of them against top-tier opponents (Van, LA, SJ, Bos). 6 games is small enough that the team cannot burn the season no matter how bad this stretch goes, but using the travel time to build team chemistry and coming home with 6 or 7 points in 6 games could serve as a launching pad for the rest of the season.

--The schedule is full of very heavy, extended stretches of both home and road play. In addition to the 6 road games to start the year, the team sees stretches of 7 out of 8 (starting Nov 27) and 4 in a row (starting Feb 6) on the road. There is of course a yin to that yang to get to an even 41/41 home road split for the full season. The Canes make most of this up in 1 huge home-heavy stretch starting Feb 15 when they play a whopping 10 out of 11 games at home.

--So I think the plan goes: Play decent early and hang around where you need to be, find a groove entering 2012 and use the big stretch of home hockey starting in mid-Feb to rack up points and build momentum heading into the playoffs.

A couple other quick hitters:

--Jason Arnott. I agree that he is a good fit. He did play on a 1-year deal last year and might take another at this stage of his career, but I fear that the budget is already spent. He played for $2.5M last year, so he is priced reasonably for a 3rd line role especially if he took a small paycut, but I am figuring that Rutherford spent his budget plus some when he signed Semin. I think the Canes go with what they have and look to add depth at the trade deadline if all goes well.

--Jeff Skinner's contract. Every once in awhile a blind squirrel finds a nut. Before calling for the Semin signing and being pretty on about the situation that made it possible I think, I hollered on July 23 in the midst of Weber-gate that the upshot for the Canes was that Rutherford should be working hard to get Skinner's next deal done before creeping too close to the waters filled with offer sheet sharks next summer. I like Skinner. He is a dynamic player still with room to grow and has a ton of marketing value to boot. But to be honest, I was a little surprised by the contract. I figured something like $3.5-$4.0M for 3-4 years. This was reasonably comparable a few other signings (Giroux, Purcell, etc.) and 4 years, if my math is right, bought out the remainder of Skinner's RFA years. If you work backward, my math goes like this. Skinner was probably worth about $6M/year for the 2 UFA years that Rutherford bought in years 5 and 6. That is what they are paying Jordan Staal, so it seems fair, right? So the Canes got a tiny discount here. If you apply that to the front 4 years, you get 4 years at $5.5M/year average. That seems about $1M too high to me given a few of the other recent contracts.

--The summer of commitment. In trading for and locking up Jordan Staal and locking up Skinner and Harrison early after re-signing Ruutu and Gleason long-term in-season last winter, Canes GM Jim Rutherford made a pretty big bet that he has the core right. Signed for 4 years (which seems like an eternity) are JStaal, EStaal, Ruutu and Skinner (so 1/3 of the forwards), Harrison and Gleason (1/3 of the defense) and Ward. You could sort of put Faulk in that category too as he is early in his contract and has limited ability to do anything except stay in a Canes uniform. So that makes 8 core, high-dollar players that are long-timers. The upside is that if Rutherford has it right, he can keep the important parts of this team together for a long time. The risk of course is that if it doesn't work there is not much money left to try to fix things. I lean half-full. I think JStaal is the kind of player that wins hockey games by being better than whoever he is playing against even if it is not in the 90-point flashy manner. And I think the rest of the core is pretty solid.

--Very important to develop depth from the system. The other upshot from the summer is that the Canes will not have a ton of money left to add a bunch more high-end players. Per my comments on Arnott, I don't think the Canes will be able to pay a bunch for UFA bottom half of the roster players. They will need to conserve some money here. The way to do this is to develop decent depth players from the system. Can Drayson Bowman be a solid 3rd-liner over the next 2 years at a meager $600k cost? How about Zac Dalpe? And can they get some blue line depth out of some borderline AHL/NHL players? The Canes no longer need these players to rise to stardom in top 6 scoring roles. But more than ever, I think they need them to become roster capable at their low costs. For guys under contract next year, the salary commitment goes up by a whopping $9M because of new pay rates for JStaal, Skinner and Harrison and escalating contracts for Staal, Ruutu, Gleason, etc. That is after about a $6M increase this year. Even with an optimistic financial scenario, I don't see the Canes jumping much past the huge 2-year $15M leap in salary. So it requires some help from the $600k-$1M guys in the system.

Do you have your tickets for opening night on October 26 yet? Have you ever been more excited going into a season?

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

Go Canes!

Join the Discussion: » 4 Comments » Post New Comment

» Maple Leafs and Hurricanes: Comparison in rebuilding strategies

» Snarly Hurricanes vs. Flyers match up set for Saturday

» Canes treading water - Will they eventually drown or swim?

» Solid first half of week tees 'make up' time at home for the weekend

» Hurricanes at Red Wings -- Canes look claw even for road trip