Canes win, deal Cullen

This has been a moderately busy week for the Canes so far. It started with a 4-1 win over the Panthers. I would attempt to give you more information about it, but I can't remember what happened despite listening to it on the radio, and the highlights online were boring. So, yeah, I'll say it was an unexciting game.

Then came the news that the Canes were moving their AHL team from Albany to Charlotte. It makes sense for the Canes minor league team to be close to the home arena, especially with the revolving door system that's been in place this season.

Last night the Canes managed to pull a win out of their butts against Buffalo in overtime. Brandon Sutter took advantage of a turnover to backhand pass it to Samsonov to win it. This was after the Canes were playing miserably for a lot of the first period, including letting in an extremely soft deflection goal.

This is the second time the Canes have beaten Buffalo in the past two weeks, which is something I like a lot. Again, why couldn't they have played like this earlier in the season?

Resulting from their early season poor play is the fire sale that Rutherford has started. Matt Cullen was today's casualty, being sent to Ottawa for Alexandre Picard and a second round draft pick. I don't know much about Picard, other than that he is 24 years old and a defenseman. This trade obviously doesn't hurt the Canes, as Cullen is a free agent at the end of this season, so he could in theory resign with the team, and the Canes get a player and a pick out of the deal.

I believe the Olympic trade freeze has just passed, so it looks like that will be all the Canes trade news for right now. The Canes play one more game and then it's the Olympic break for two weeks.

U-S-A! U-S-A!

Bus crash and a win

Big day in the realm of the Carolina Hurricanes yesterday.

First of all, the Canes' minor league affiliate, the Albany River Rats, were involved in a horrible bus crash early Thursday morning. Apparently the bus was traveling in snowy conditions when it flipped over and came to rest by a guard rail. Luckily, everyone was able to walk off the bus, although 4 players (Casey Borer, Joe Jensen, Nicholas Blanchard, and Jonathan Paiement) and the radio commentator were kept in the hospital with more serious injuries. Hopefully they will recover quickly - it was very lucky that more people weren't seriously hurt.

As for the Hurricanes, they kicked butt in a 6-2 win over the Islanders. A well-played game with some fights in the third period (Conboy v. Jackman and LaRose v. Comrie. Neither was a bout to write home about, but I'll take them considering how rare fights are when your team is the Canes). The Canes really set the tone of the game at the end of the first period by scoring two goals in less than a minute.

Essentially, I think the team should play on the road the rest of the season, considering their recent road streak and their current home losing streak. But, that's not going to happen tonight, as the Canes take on the Lightning at home. The Canes are still ninth in the standings, but have closed the points gap to three.