Rod, please don't make this list

Halfway through the season and ready to watch the All-Star game this weekend I felt it was a good time to bring up our Captain's plus/minus record. Do you think he will break out the 2nd half and redeem himself? Or do you think he will toil at the bottom and add his name to this ugly record? If he does he will join a former Cane rental player (keep reading)

Brindy is currently last in the league with -29. There are only 3 others in the -20 range so he does have some company. I believe he can and will move up the list and not end at the bottom. Especially if his ice time keeps lowering it might not get worse!!

As of 1/24 ==>

Any guess what the worst plus/minus in history was? I took a quick check on the net to see.
http://www.lcshockey.com/feb06/072206.asp

LOWEST SINGLE-SEASON PLUS-MINUS

Year Player, Team                    +/-
1. 1975 Bill Mikkelson, Washington      -82
2. 1975 Greg Joly, Washington           -68
3. 1975 Mike Marson, Washington         -65
4. 1974 Reggie Leach, California        -61
1976 Larry Johnston, Kansas City     -61
1981 Dave Babych, Winnipeg           -61
7. 1984 Pat Boutette, Pittsburgh        -58
8. 1975 Dennis Patterson, Kansas City   -57
1978 Brad Maxwell, Minnesota         -57
1981 Norm Dupont, Winnipeg           -57
1983 Doug Sulliman, Hartford         -57

YEAR-BY-YEAR LOWEST PLUS-MINUS

Year Player, Team                       +/-
1968 Elmer Vasko, Minnesota             -36
1969 J.P. Parise, Minnesota             -44
1970 Bill McCreary, St. Louis           -44     
1971 Doug Roberts, California           -56
1972 Gil Perreault, Buffalo             -40
Real Lemieux, Los Angeles          -40
1973 Bill Mikkelson, NY Islanders       -54
1974 Reggie Leach, California           -61
1975 Bill Mikkelson, Washington         -82
1976 Larry Johnston, Kansas City        -61
1977 Al Cameron, Detroit                -43
1978 Brad Maxwell, Minnesota            -57
1979 Rick Green, Washington             -45
1980 Steve Sullivan, Winnipeg           -45
1981 Dave Babych, Winnipeg              -61
1982 Dwight Foster, Colorado            -53
1983 Doug Sulliman, Hartford            -57
1984 Pat Boutette, Pittsburgh           -58
1985 Doug Shedden, Pittsburgh           -51
1986 Randy Ladoucer, Detroit            -54
1987 Grant Ledyard, Los Angeles         -40
1988 Brian MacLellan, Minnesota         -44
1989 Tom Fergus, Toronto                -38
1990 Bryan Fogarty, Quebec              -47
1991 Vincent Damphousse, Toronto        -31
1992 Paul Fenton, San Jose              -39
1993 Neil Wilkinson, San Jose           -50
Rob Zettler, San Jose              -50
Doug Zmolek, San Jose              -50
1994 Gord Dineen, Ottawa                -52
1995 Chris Dahlquist, Ottawa            -30
1996 Craig Janney, San Jose             -35
1997 Alexandre Daigle, Ottawa           -33
1998 Paul Ysebaert, Tampa Bay           -43
1999 Darcy Tucker, Tampa Bay            -34
2000 Yannick Tremblay, Atlanta          -42
2001 Patrice Brisebois, Montreal        -31
2002 Tyler Wright, Columbus             -40
2003 Wayne Primeau, Pittsburgh          -30
2004 Rico Fata, Pittsburgh              -46
2006 Mark Recchi, Carolina              -36 

Lets hope Rod doesn't add his name here.

Cory Stillman is a lover, not a fighter

At least that's what I always thought. We know he's not a driver. Considering that we didn't see him drop the gloves once in his Hurricane tenure - I was certainly caught off guard when seeing this the other day:

The most recent fight before this week?: during the 2004 playoffs as a Bolt, according to his fight card at hockeyfights.com. Of course, had he ever dropped the gloves as a Cane - he would have injured something to take him out of the line-up for at least 3 months.

In all seriousness, I couldn't be happier for Cory and his extremely nice family and wish them all the best. Lets just hope he's careful driving around in Florida with those blue-hairs all over the roads.

Up is down - left is right

"Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!" - the Hurricanes won a hockey game! New president! Raleigh is effin snowed in! People spontaneously combusting! Hide your families! Chad LaRose is all that is man! Cam Ward is Conn Smythe!

Thank You Sir, May I Have Another

Nice to see a complete effort last night in Toronto as Cam shutout the Leafs on 35 shots and the Canes end a 5 game losing streak. See the game video highlights on NHL.com here:



With goals from Corvo and LaRose and Cam "standing on his head", hopefully the team will have some of that missing MOJO I talked about yesterday going to Pittsburgh tonight.

Where Is the Luck?

Big Glove Tap to Dave for allowing me to contribute to this most Holy Grail - Carolina On Ice Blog. I will try to uphold the standards he and EOH have set so far. Although, he may live to regret the decision later!

Anyway, greetings to all COI readers. While I am a big hockey and Canes' fan, I am also an avid golfer, hence the handle I choose. I anxiously await your feedback and comments.

So, for my first post. Where is the Luck? Is is just me or does it seem that every other team we play gets all the breaks? I will digress and claim that the goal Willie scored a couple of games ago was pretty damn lucky as it tipped off his stick and bounced around 2 or 3 defensemen prior to finding the goal. But all in all, we usually get the short end. Or, is it a plain lack of skill? I doubt that though.

By this I mean:

1. Lucky goals -the ones we all look at on the replay and say "how the hell did he do that?
2. Break Aways - the other guys almost certainly score on an odd man rush, when have we?
3. Open Nets - how many clear open shots have we missed?
4. What else? I won't touch penalties. Everyone gets and/or misses their fair share
   

My intent here was not to cry, whine, moan, what have you, but I swear the hockey gods need to lighten up just a bit. It is obvious that we need some outside help to stop this losing slide! How about some MOJO for Mo and the Boys. Don't you agree they deserve it?
Cheers!

Complete paragraphs are way over rated

Ugh. Back to the Holy Shit Buffalo's Cold Arena tonight for the Hurricanes tonight. Attempting to snap the skid - this easily still looks like a team that could lose a few more before they right the ship.

Some random thoughts for you on a frozen tundra of a Saturday:

Paul Maurice's performance as coach so far hasn't blown away anyone. In a way, deep down I'm sort of glad he's not killing-it-good as I eagerly await the eventual hiring of Ronnie Francis as the new head coach next summer (ready or not).

Tim Gleason is never one to stop short of providing some good press. He's dropped some jewels this year including the now infamous "That's what happens when you suck" and accurately summed up the Toronto effort as "piss-poor".

I like coffee. A lot.

D-Lee is an underground Sabres homer, apparently. How sweet of him. (I kid, of course - David is my hero.)

Like the Canes, the Sabres have been riding the "meh"-boat this season. They certainly have the talent and have shown the potential to dominate games but have lacked the consistency on a game-to-game basis. Sounds familiar right? There are several worthy Sabres blogs out there, but my choice is the vintage BfloBlog.

Lindy Ruff is a great coach, but I still think he's an ass.

Staal did his Hay-zeus Christo impression during his goal celebration Thursday night. I likes.

I heart the NHL Network. What the hell would we do without it? Further more, why isn't Carrie Milbank working for Versus full time yet? Of course she's a stone cold stunner of a beauty - but she's entertaining, accurate, enlightening and knows her hock-ah-jah-wee-ah pretty well.

Speaking of Versus - I still don't understand why they can only show two games a week. Monday & Tuesday nights are apparently the only nights that important games are played in the US of A. Johnny Forslund has been a stud on his VS appearances though. I always dig reading what Steve Lepore has to say about the pucky media. Check him out.

You will freeze your nips off outside today. The Leafs came and brought their weather with them as they came and shat on the South (they beat the Thrash Friday night). Stay inside by the fire all day. Watch TV. Cuddle up with your doggy or kitty.

If you're a drinker - try this recipe for BunWarmers and you'll thank me later.

Go Canes.

and a special shout-out to Coach Kay Yow, who is an inspiration to us all. Hang in there, Coach.

Dissapointment

Leafs 6 - Canes 4. EPIC FAIL.