Posting placeholder for comments while I write rest of blog...
In what has been a tough season for Canes fans, today we get to wave goodbye to another liked player in Tuomo Ruutu. When the season started, who would have guessed that Tim Gleason and Tuomo Ruutu would be gone and Cam Ward more or less missing?
I told someone a few days ago that after the 2001-02 Stanley Cup Finals run that I made a hard shift to rooting for Canes playoffs as priority 1 and individual players behind that. But Ruutu was still 1 of my favorites over the past few years because of his work ethic and the heart he played with. I will save a longer tribute for when I have time to do it right.
As far as evaluating the trade, I detailed my thoughts on Ruutu
HERE on January 20. The short version is that for $5M the hope that he might return to his previous level just was not worth the risk that he might not. Players in the "we hope he rebounds" category generally went for $1-2M this past summer (Boyes, Raymond, etc.), so keeping 1 priced at $5M is too much high risk/high reward. Best case is that he returns to where he was a few years back which him worth...well...at best $5M.
I wrote this morning that I would take the financial flexibility that comes with trading Ruutu as long as the Canes did not eat a big chunk of his salary (initial reports at least are that they did not otherwise I will be editing this). The real evaluation of the return for this trade is what the Canes are able to do with the $4.2M savings this summer and less about Andrei Loktionov.
But as far as Loktionov, I net it out like this:
--Canes added another smaller, skilled player and lost a bigger, more physical one. Big uggh, but beggars can't be choosers.
--Loktionov brings yet another option for the power play. Eventually Canes management is going to look more closely at the power play system and coaching, but until then we might as well keep adding different personnel to see if it creates magic.
--Loktionov could also be an interesting complement to Jeff Skinner. He brings skill, playmaking and the ability to play at Skinner's pace. If you could put a big space-making 2-way right wing with them (think a younger Erik Cole) just maybe you have a scoring focused 2B line.
The short version: As much as I liked Tuomo Ruutu, I think this deal makes sense for the decrease in risk and increase in financial flexibility alone. The real decider is if the savings get put to good use this summer.
Twitter=@CarolinaMatt63
Go Canes!
Matt on Google+