One of the inevitable results of a season like this one unless things turn abruptly and greatly in a hurry is a shakeup in the lineup. You get 2 varieties of this. First is doing deals trying to change the personnel, chemistry, coaching, whatever else trying to build a better team. Enter Kirk Muller and subtract Tomas Kaberle. The second is doing deals to collect futures for guys whose contracts are up at the end of the season. Especially for a team like the Canes who needs to get cheap, productive youth in the lineup to bridge the salary deficit of their lineup, this part is key.

The players who are unrestricted free agents this summer are Tim Gleason, Bryan Allen, Alexei Ponikarovsky, Jaroslav Spacek and Tuomo Ruutu.

There is a pretty good chance that all of these players will be gone by the trade deadline. The fact that GM Jim Rutherford does not do deals for next year during the season also plays into this. In theory, the Canes could decide that they want to keep someone like Ruutu long-term and start working on his next deal. But pretty much without exception, Rutherford has not done this in the past.

So I think it might be time now to cut Ruutu loose early for a couple reasons:

1) He is playing pretty well right now which increases his value. He has not scored as much in the past couple, but he just ran off a string of 7 goals in about a dozen games.

2) With his style of play, he is also one bang away from a nagging shoulder injury or something similar that cuts his productivity and/or puts him on the shelf where his value drops.

Not sure if/where Ruutu fits in the longer term plans, but even if the Canes did want him back the route to do so might be a conversation with him and his agent expressing such to tee up July conversations followed by a trade where he gets some say on where he goes as a gesture of goodwill.

What say you Canes fans? Is it time to start collecting value early for the UFAs this summer? Or do you ride out the current lineup a little longer figuring that the bidding wars at the deadline could drive prices higher?

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Go Canes!

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