Even though he has received a little more recognition since building the 2006 Stanley Cup champion team, I still think Canes GM Jim Rutherford is underrated as a GM. The Canes organization regularly lives somewhere between $5-10 million under the salary cap. And to make matters worse, I would argue that during the decade starting in 2000 (shortly after the team moved to North Carolina) the team was below average in terms of developing NHL talent from the draft (that is changing rapidly right now with the quantity and quality of Canes youngsters already on the team or on the way).

But Jim Rutherford has been a master at making ho-hum acquisitions via trade or free agency often in bulk to build out a pretty good hockey team.

Consider these 2000-09 Canes stats:
--2 Stanley Cup finals and 1 championship win.
--Another trip all the way to the Eastern Conference finals.
--9 playoff series wins in only 4 trips to the playoffs.
--Each of the finals runs was followed by a horrible year or 2 requiring a significant rebuild of the roster by Jim Rutherford.

The masterpiece was of course the 2006 Stanley Cup finals team (though I would argue that what he did in 2001-02 was as good or better). Going into the lockout, the GMs around the league were, for the first time in about 10 years, a little cautious spending money with the uncertainty about what the new CBA would look like. Coming out of the lockout, there was some caution but also some bidding wars with GMs that did not spend the previous summer going into the lockout. There was the usual free agent frenzy with a decent quantity of big names available over the course of not 1 but 2 seasons passing by. Enter GM Jim Rutherford and the master of the ho-hum move.

Over the course of those 2 summers he added:
--Ray Whitney top 9 forward, power play help and eventual assistant captain for $1.5M/year since Detroit was paying him a bunch as part of his buyout.
--Cory Stillman 1st line playmaker for Staal and Cole's breakout years for $1.75M/year.
--Frantisek Kaberle top 4 defenseman for $1.3M/year.
--Martin Gerber 38 wins for $1.1M/year.
--Matt Cullen top 9 forward for $670k/year.
--Mike Commodore (only 1 of list acquired by trade but it was a mere 5th round pick) top 4 defenseman for $450k/year.

When the ho-hum genius work was done, Jim Rutherford had built about half of a Stanley Cup champion hockey team from scratch (2 of 4 top 4 d; starting goalie; 3 of top 9 forwards = 6 of top 14 roster players) with a stunning average cost of $1.1M/player.

None of these moves received any attention during the free agent frenzy and the end result was that the Canes were picked to finish between 27th and 30th heading into the season. And we all know how it ended.

But enough of memory lane. Fast forward to today and you see some of the same. The Canes official budget per this summer is about $10M under the NHL's salary cap. Between the trade deadline and this summer, the Canes parted ways with Ray Whitney, Matt Cullen, Rod Brind'Amour (to retirement and a different job with the team), etc. And all of the spots were left open during a quiet summer, so that the kids could compete for them in September.

So it is no secret that Canes GM Jim Rutherford is pretty frugal when it comes to spending money on salary, and he has been darn good at it historically.

But here is a bit of an interesting aside. As fiscally sound as Rutherford has been in general with the roster -- a bunch of kids at $450-500k, Jussi Jokinen and Chad Larose at $1.8M/year, etc. I think you could actually make a case that he is overpaying at the top end.

Eric Staal's long-term contract averages out at $8.25M/year, and Cam Ward's at $6.3M/year.

First, let me be clear. I am not questioning the importance of either player as a key part of the team both in terms of leadership and play on the ice and in terms of marketing the team to fans. And I am thrilled to have each as leaders of the team partly because of the raw stats and production but at least equally so because they have the right attitude, work ethic, drive to win, etc. and know how to win via experience at a young age.

But all this said, you can make a case that both Cam Ward and Eric Staal put the Canes at a bit of a disadvantage in terms of budget especially when you consider that the Canes budget is less than the league max by quite a bit.

For Eric Staal, decent comparisons:

--The high-end elite (primarily centers): Crosby and Malkin are pegged at $8.7M/year, Lecavalier at $7.7M and Ovechkin at $9.5M. These are perennial Hart trophy contenders. There are times when I think Staal is in or close to this category but other times when he just is not. What that really means is that he just is not yet. But his price is.

--The better category. I think the fairer category for Staal is amongst the good young 1st line centers that you build a franchise around ideally from successful/winning teams. Here you get the list of Getzlaf at $5.3M, Toews at $6.3M, Datsyuk at $6.7M, Kopitar at $6.8M, Carter at $5.0M, Richards at $5.8M, Sedin at $6.1M and Backstrom at $6.7M. It is very interesting to me how closely these salaries converge right at $6.something million/year. You have a good number of Stanley Cups here, letters on the jersey, similar or better point totals and a similar importance in terms of marketing the team. If you put Staal in this category, it would suggest that Staal is about $1.5-1.7M higher than fair (and that is before any kind of home town, small market, I like the organization type of discount).

For Cam Ward, decent comparisons:

--Similar age top-tier goalies who have been deep in the playoffs. The glaring comparison is Ryan Miller at $6.3M which was very clearly the model for Ward's contract and not an unfair benchmark given age, experience, success, etc. at the time. But then consider that Fleury is $5.0M/year

--Other top-tier franchise goalies who signed after a good year. The outlier is Lundqvist at $6.9M but then you get Luongo at $5.3M, Kiprusoff at $5.8M and Thomas at $5.0M. And the list of goalies with no known name to lead teams deep in the playoffs at less than $2M/year only seems to drag down the price of the elite long-term.

My math says that Ward's contract as compared to Miller's is not crazy at $6.3M, but that something more like $5-5.5M would not have been outlandishly cheap either.

At the end of the day, you have to be happy to have both of these guys. And you have to be even happier that neither is the type to play harder/less hard based on contract status.

But as an interesting aside, I think you could argue that the Canes could be in for $2.5-$4M more than fair market value for Staal and Ward combined. For a team underspending the cap and working on a self-imposed budget that buys a pretty good top 4 defenseman or more of a true top 6 scoring forward which the team could obviously use.

Okay...hockey daydreaming and math aside...The Canes play a home and away back-to-back against Florida Friday and Saturday with a big 4 points at stake. I am most eager to see if the Canes can use the "overwhelm with aggressive forechecking and speed" formula successfully again to generate a bunch of offense and ice tilted strongly in their favor.

Go Canes!

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