Canes reveal red logo

Canes news of the day is the revealing of the 2011 All Star Game logo.

And, uh, there's a lot of red.

Artist's rendering of Canes All-Star Logo

But other than that it looks fine, I think. It's not groundbreaking, but it's not too horrendous that I won't consider buying some memoribilia with it on there.

Also newsworthy today is the NHLPA filing a grievance protesting the NHL's rejection of the Kovalchuk contract. From here, the deal goes into arbitration, with the results being the contract being legit or Kovalchuk being a free agent again.

Only problem? They have to decide on a arbitrator. Which, of course, will drag out this saga even longer. Although I'm not complaining too much, as it does add some spice into this rather droll offseason.

Updates whenever something interesting happens, per normal.

Future, Present & Past

Weeeeee! Schedules were released today! Opening Night '09 is set for October 2nd against the Flyers. Personally I wish that it was the next week because that is my "fall break" for college. Alas, this will be the first year that I won't be at the opener (or, rather, I haven't developed a plan to get me there yet...).

The interesting thing that I've noticed is that there doesn't seem to be a true West-Coast stint where the Canes go away for five games or so. Most of the western games are spread throughout the season. Also special about this season is the Winter Olympic break in the middle of February - ooh, I can't wait for that either!

Along with the unveiling of the schedules came the announcement that this year's Winter Classic will be played at Fenway Park between the Boston Bruins and the Philadelphia Flyers. Likely to be a good matchup, and likely to be bitter cold - that's what makes it great, right?

Turning to the present, it appears that Ruutu and the Canes are having issues on the length of the contract to be signed. The Canes want to wrap him up long term, Ruutu wants only a year so that he can hit the free agency market after this season. Considering Rutherford's track record with having people not go to arbitration, I wouldn't be surprised if this gets wrapped up before the hearing on July 30th.

And, finally, to yesterday, when the Canes signed Tom Kostopoulos to a three year deal that will average a little under a million per. Previously he played with the Canadiens, although I don't really remember much about him other than looking at the lineup and going "Hm. 'Kostopoulos'. That's a name you don't hear much." He had 106 penalty minutes last season and seems to be the tough defensive forward that the Canes have missed the last few years. Apparently he's known for his hard work, and if you read this article, it seems like from that angle the Canes have signed a larger version of Chad LaRose. If that's the case, it sounds like an awesome signing.

79 days until Opening Night. I can't wait!

Summer Doldrums

Let's see, what has happened in the past week...

Tuomo Ruutu has opted to take the Canes to arbitration. Hopefully the Canes can come to a good resolution with him - I would hate to lose such a bruiser of a forward.

Recently, the Canes re-signed Casey Borer and Justin Peters to two-way contracts as well as Steven Goertzen from the Phoenix Coyotes.

And finally, today Joe Sakic announced his retirement after 20 seasons in the NHL.

Otherwise, not much has gone on in the hockey world. As always, I will update when anything earth-shattering occurs.

If there are any formatting errors in this post blame my Tablet PC, not me. I'm still getting used to this whole writing on the screen thing. (And the "I'm not going to recognize your handwriting on the first try" thing too). Along the same lines, if anyone has any tips for dealing with tablets, please leave a comment!

Good news!

So, at least the '08-'09 Canes won't be without two of my favorite players: Yesterday Chad LaRose signed a one-year, $875k contract, avoiding his arbitration date.

And it looks like the Canes roster is mostly wrapped up for next year. Except for a rumored trade involving one of our defensemen. (Psst... Rutherford! Trade Kaberle! An offensive defenseman that scored no goals? And has a rather large contract ($2.2 mil) for that goose egg in the stats? Hello trade bait!)

Seidenberg signed

Canes locked up another defenseman today, with Dennis Seidenberg signing a one-year, $1.2 mil contract.

This is in addition to Joni Pitakenen (*mumbles something about Cole*), Anton Babchuk, and Josef Melichar.

Now, the Babchuk thing really surprised me when I first heard about it. I didn't expect him to be coming back to play for the Canes if he ever came back - and I didn't think we'd give him a million dollars to do so.

But, looking at some of the other defensive contracts given out this year, I guess a million dollars is pretty cheap.

I wish I would get a job where a million dollars was a low salary. But I digress.

Anyways... Chad LaRose filed for arbitration. I hope whatever wrinkle they hit in those contract negotiations will be ironed out by the arbitrator. I can barely imagine a team without Cole, but without Cole AND LaRose? That would just be too cruel.