Wrapping up the preseason

Awesome news, guys: THE SEASON STARTS IN TWO DAYS!!!!

Crazy, isn't it? But before we roll into the regular season, let me recap the waning moments of the preseason.

The Canes finished their preseason on a 2-0 winning streak, winning 4-3 against Atlanta last Friday and then 5-2 against Nashville on Saturday. It's always good to see that the team is winning when the roster is pretty much set - hopefully that will be a sign of the regular season (I'm going to ignore the fact that the Atlanta win came against a team playing without Ilya Kovulchuk - a win is a win). The roster didn't turn out too different than expected - Brandon Sutter and Zach Boychuk were sent down to finalize the roster. Apparently Brandon Sutter played very well in the games he was in, so I wouldn't be surprised if he was one of the first call-ups once someone goes down (and someone will go down, unless the Canes have miraculously gotten rid of their injury tendencies over the offseason).

The BIG news today was that Cam Ward signed a gargantuan contract extension - 6 years for $6.3 mil per. I'm glad Cam is wrapped up - the last thing we need is for him to hit free agency and possibly lose our goaltender. Although I am slightly wary of the length, but I think I'll always be wary of long contracts after seeing how Rick DiPietro's contact went down like a lead zeppelin. As long as that doesn't bite the Canes, I think it's a good signing, as that's what top-notch goalies are going for these days.

And finally, I must cast a farewell to the Acid Queen, who is closing down her blog. Her blog was one of the first Canes ones that I read and was actually an inspiration to both turn my blog down the avenue of hockey and to have no qualms about saying what I truly think. So happy trails and good luck, AQ.

7pm Friday. Canes v. Philadelphia Flyers. Attend it, watch it, or listen to it. I don't care which, just do it and welcome in the new Canes season!

Erik Cole stats (Friday): 1 assist