I checked out of Carolina Hurricanes world about noon on Saturday and am just getting back to it after a whirlwind weekend of kids’ sports all day Saturday, followed by camping Saturday night and then a few more scheduled things to close out Sunday. It looks like the Canes had a whirlwind 24 hours or so as well.
On the Dalpe trade:
Canes trade Dalpe + Welsh for 4th round pick and Tochkin.
First it is important to under what really happened and to do that you need to understand the situations with the individual players.
--Zac Dalpe. He did not make the cut to 23 players. Canes GM Jim Rutherford had a good inkling that Dalpe would get claimed off waivers on the way to the AHL. Rutherford started working the phones to see if he could get something of value for Dalpe from a team that wanted him but did not feel confident that he would fall to where they were in terms of waiver priority. And Rutherford found a taker.
--Jeremy Welsh. He similarly did not make the roster. He is actually not subject to waivers and would not have been claimed anyway. The problem with Welsh is that he has a 1-way contract that pays him $1M this season regardless of if he is in the AHL or NHL. His cap hit at the NHL level is $850 (avg of 2-year deal), but his cap hit if he is sent to the AHL is actually zero. (It is something like cap hit less $550k NHL min - $375k which is $0.) If Rutherford could have gotten rid of this contract via waivers he would have. Instead, part of giving up Dalpe was that the taker had to eat Welsh’s $1M salary. I would be surprised if he makes the NHL club in Vancouver. They do get some value in that they get his rights going forward and probably under a normal 2-way contract when he re-signs next summer.
--Kellan Tochkin. He is Vancouver’s equivalent of Welsh where Vancouver wanted him gone. Vancouver did not invite him their prospects camp or rookie tourney team this summer and he played for Missour of the Central Hockey League last year. I have no idea what he did, but he was clearly on the outside looking in at the Canucks organization despite being under contract. He is a real long shot to make the NHL, probably not even likely to contribute at the AHL level and really just a tiny $55k salary dump in exchange for Welsh.
--4th round draft pick. (Self-explanatory.)
So when you net it out, the Canes traded Dalpe and Welsh’s future rights (not so much 2013-14 but what he might be after more development). In return, the team received $945,000 cash (difference in Welsh and Tochkin committed $) and a 4th round pick. Rutherford also gets the Welsh contract, which looks kind of silly in retrospect, off the books. I think that is a decent return for a player who for whatever reason just did not seem to fit what Muller wanted and was going to disappear for nothing via waivers minus a trade.
In other roster trimming news, Tuomo Ruutu was officially placed on IR, and Chris Terry was placed on waivers to (hopefully) go to Charlotte which gets the Canes down to 23 players…sort of.
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So is this the final roster? Not exactly. The team is technically at 23 players, but it is not done.
FORWARD: Minus Dalpe, Welsh and Terry, the team is technically down to 12 forwards but that includes Westgarth which would mean the need to carry 1 more for the nights he does not play. And not in the mix is Dvorak who is still practicing with the team but has not formally signed a contract. So it seems like he is likely to be part of the opening day roster (team has not said this; it is my best guess) but has to sign a contract first – which would put the Canes back at 24 and above the limit. With Lindholm not going on IR, it seems like he is likely to be in the opening day lineup. Where is the question since he has not skated in practice in awhile. Best guess would be RW on Nash's line (not sure exactly that that is) or possibly back at center which is where he started training camp way back when.
DEFENSE: The team still has 9 defensemen. No one was cut. There are the 6 veterans on 1-way contracts and then also Bellemore, Murphy and Corrente. No way will the team keep more than 8 healthy defensemen. Gleason is still seemingly out but is not on IR.
So what is going on?
At forward:
--Reasonably likely: Radek Dvorak will be signed. I cannot imagine the team would still have him around if he was not staying. The delay in making this official might be seeing if anyone else is delayed enough to go on IR which would make room before going with plan B and sending someone else to Charlotte.
--Wild card: The team is looking to make another trade or possibly waiver wire claim to add a 13th forward and has Dvorak on the hook until that happens or in case it does not.
On defense:
--The most puzzling thing to me is why Corrente is still around. Could it simply be a matter of wanting to continue practicing in normal D 2s despite Gleason still being out? Could Muller consider moving him to wing? Is it Muller just continuing to reward a player and send a message to everyone else about the need for just flat out doing whatever it takes to stay for just a few days longer? My wild guess is the first, just not needing to do anything and wanting the pairs for D for a couple more practices, but who knows on this one.
--Bellemore. I continue to think that the Canes will not risk him on waivers because someone paying attention to the Canes training camp and needing blue line depth would snatch him up.
--Murphy. I am not sure here either. Is there a reason why he might be slotted for the AHL, but the team wants him to get a few more days practicing with the NHL group? Possibly. Could he actually have made the team probably to be a power play specialist? Possibly. Could he be a #8 who would stay if Gleason is not ready by Friday? Seems unlikely but I guess that is also possible.
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More important than the still not completed roster puzzle is getting ready for the season opener on Friday against Detroit at home in PNC Arena. In that regard things are looking up:
--Health: While Tuomo Ruutu did go on IR, Jeff Skinner might practice as early as Monday and none of Tim Gleason, Alexander Semin or Elias Lindholm was put on IR to solve the roster squeeze which suggests that there is at least a decent chance that all of these players will be ready to go by Friday. Even the Ruutu situation took a slight turn for the better when in its official IR announcement, the team stated clearly that the current “lower body injury” was not related to the past hip problems.
--Mojo: With 3 consecutive wins and 2 very solid efforts by both Cam Ward and the defense in front of him, the team should enter Friday’s game with a positive mindset and ready to go.
Monday has the potential to be another interesting day as we get the next set of teaser clues or possibly a final answer on what the opening day roster will look like.
Twitter=@CarolinaMatt63.
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