Reloading in Raleigh, Shakeup in Charlotte

[DaveG-Canes]

The Hurricanes made a couple splashes in free agency already this season, looking possibly at a new look to their bottom 6 in an attempt to be a more balanced team. Known for their offensive prowess for years, the team took a heavily favored Montreal team to the brink before being eliminated in game 7 of the first round. But first round exits are not acceptable to GM Greybill and the team knew it had to retool things in their middle 6 to be more effective long-term, hence this years drafting strategy after essentially rebuilding their defense long-term last offseason.

So, here we are, and in the first couple days of free agency the Hurricanes, who let Wayne Primeau and Tom Kostopoulos walk this offseason, have made moves for C Jochen Hecht, and LW Thomas Raffl. Combined with the return of LW Dustin Penner and the continued development of RW Tom Wilson, the Hurricanes added another solid but unspectacular centerman to what's already one of the deepest center cores in the league. Raffl on the other hand is going to be expected to use his heavy shot and heavy hitting on the 4th line along with Mike Brown to disrupt and hopefully generate some chances for the Canes.

Meanwhile on D, the only real change is that Tim Gleason was shipped out, with the team determining they were unable to afford retaining him long term and with a plethora of young prospects in the system he was deemed unnecessary in the bigger picture. Look for them to replace him from within with Slater Koekkoek this season, after he got his first taste of the league in the playoffs last year.

Expected lines as of now:
Zach Boychuk - Eric Staal - Teemu Pulkkinen
Tuomo Ruutu - Brandon Sutter - Mikko Koivu
Dustin Penner - Jochen Hecht - Tom Wilson
Thomas Raffl - Artem Voronin - Mike Brown
Andreas Dahlstrom

Kevin Gravel - Bohumil Jank
Joni Pitkanen - Casey Borer
Jamie McBain - Slater Koekkoek
Brett Bellemore

Cam Ward
Matt Mahalak

Meanwhile, the shakeup in Charlotte has been due and in the making for several seasons now. Gone is prettymuch the entire prospect core, having now either proven themselves worthy of a spot in the league, or worthy of seeing their way out of town in free agency. In their place, a glut of depth that the Canes have drafted over the past few seasons, and a few UFA pickups that should be seeing marginal roles throughout the season as injuries dictate. The basic look for the team will start off something like this:

Samu Markkula - Nick Cousins - Kerby Rychel
Konstantin Komarek - Shane Eiserman - Arvid "Strongbad" Stromberg
Evgenii Dadonov - Philippe Paradis - Andreas Athanasiou
Nicolas Blanchard - Matthew Debulow - Matt Kennedy
Stephen McCauley - Anthony Bardaro - Michael Svihalek

Jonathan Diaby - Patrick Wiercioch
Lukas Bengtson - Kristian Skalin
Brian Dumoulin - Tommi Kivisto
Colin Bowman - Dillon Fournier

Mike Murphy
Benjamin Conz
Frank Palazzese

Rookies Rychel, Eiserman, Diaby, and Markkula especially are expected to play big roles, with the first 3 there being heavy factors for ice time with the big team by the end of the season. In fact don't be surprised if you see Rychel supplanting Pulkkinen on the top line here eventually, as while he doesn't have Teemu's shot yet, everything else about his game should be a good bit better in the long run.