Buyouts?

Buyouts are an interesting concept to me. The fact that you're essentially paying people to not play seems somewhat counterintuitive - but can be very useful when dealing with poor play and large contracts. And, in the Canes case, trying to keep close to their self-imposed low salary cap.

The two names that have been bandied about when it comes to buyouts this year are Rod Brind'Amour, our ex-captain, and Sergei Samsonov. As sad as it is to say, I think that both should be bought out, although perhaps Brind'Amour deserves it more.


Samsonov didn't have that great of a year, certainly not on par with the previous one, and he never really seemed to be a deciding factor in most of the games. He might, however, just be a victim of the Canes trying to get younger and cheaper and unfortunately for Sergei, he is neither.


Brind'Amour, well, let's just say that his play has tailed off from his Selke-winning years. Two years ago, his plus-minus was absolutely horrible, and this past season he followed it up with a worse plus-minus and barely produced point-wise. He was moved to the fourth-line, he spent games in the press box, the captaincy was taken away from him. I understand that it's hard to retire... but I'm not sure that much is left in the tank.


That being said, I do not envy Rutherford for having to make this decision. Brind'Amour has been an integral part of this Canes team for many years and I don't think that a buyout is the way anyone wants this relationship to end. But, I also shudder to think of another year of Brind'Amour playing the way he did last season.


The final decision is Rutherford's and he has until the 30th to buyout either (or both) players. I wouldn't be surprised if either event occurs.


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A quick blog note: Over the next few weeks I might be moving things around here. Nothing drastic, but just a heads up that if the blog looks like someone threw up HTML I probably just messed something up. If you come back in a few hours and it still looks the same... well, maybe you should stop using IE and switch to a better browser.

Canes buyout Frank Kaberle

Today the Canes announced that they have bought out Frank Kaberle's contract.

I think with the recent signings on defense that no one will be surprised by this development. Kaberle had been good in the past (specifically the '05-'06 season), but he recently had been useless, sitting out several games this past season.

And, honestly, just look at the posts tagged with his name and you'll get several pleas to trade him and his monstrous contract that he didn't quite live up to.

Including an awesome MS Paint pic of "Tank Parabola".Well, I suppose I'll have to settle for a buyout instead of a trade.

News from the offseason

News from the offseason (complete with stilted sentences because coherent thinking is totally not made for when school is out):

Signs that the next season is getting closer (but still dreadfully far away) were seen in the past few days. The Canes released their preseason schedule, which consists of four games with the Predators and Thrashers being the opponents. The full regular season schedule will be released on the 15th (Wednesday!), which coincidentally is the start of the prospect conditioning camp.

The Canes are continuing to try and solidify the ranks for the next season, signing Jay Harrison to a two-way contract. There is also talk of buying out Frank Kaberle to help save the team some money. If the Canes would manage to sign someone good I wouldn't be against such a move - as of now I really don't see that our defensive depth has improved since the last season (especially with Anton Babchuk looking to take his wicked slapshot back to Russia), so currently I don't think Kaberle being on or off the team really makes a difference.

You may have seen that the Canes made the 1st-of-the-NHL, 2nd-overall position in ESPN the Magazine's Ultimate Team Rankings. Rutherford has some nice things to say about us fans in an open letter about the rankings.

All I have to say is finally - FINALLY! - the Canes are getting some respect from a national source. We Caniacs have known all along how awesome hockey in the Triangle is - it's nice to see other people wising up to that fact as well.