warning: this post is about hockey. the boring, no fun, offseason business side of hockey. the part of hockey where champions are dismantled and dynasties are bought and sold. if you dont like hockey, then you should stop reading now.

with that out of the way, onward.

i have a love hate relationship with jim rutherford, the general manager of the carolina hurricanes. now, general managers in the nhl are different than in most sports. they dont sit on their asses and do nothing, like in baseball, nor are they glorified coaches, like in football. general manangers in the nhl just deal with personnel issues, contracts and trades and such.

ive mostly hated jr for the past few years because of his super penny pincher attitude when it came to his moves. even before there was a salary cap, jr had a tendency to completely ignore a players accomplishments when considering resigning intergral pieces of the team. its rumored that his favorite line around the office is "we can get it cheaper elsewhere."

now cheaper is all well and good when it comes to chinese hookers and cocaine, but when it comes to team building, it doesnt work. canes fans subsequently suffered through years of spare parts teams bought up from garage sales. no fun to watch, and certainly not winners.

this year didnt start out any differently. the canes had major holes to fill. two top defensemen. scoring winger. scoring center. goaltender. powerplay pointman. and for coach laviolette's system to work, they all have to be super fast. jr's results were at the time disappointing. commodore and kaberle? neither were top dmen on their old clubs, and neither of their old clubs were particularly good defensive teams. matt cullen and cory stillman? ones an underachieving journeyman and the other a slow aging career third stringer. awesome jr, just awesome.

and then we won the stanley cup.

in the nhl, there is a phenomenon called the stanley cup hangover. teams that win the cup tend to struggle the following year. the way you avoid this is be smart during the offseason and make sure your team needs are filled twice over, just for depth.

jr was able to resign the biggest absolute must sign players in eric staal, rod brindamour, and justin williams, along with kaberle and commodore. however, none of these players were unrestricted free agents, and were never in danger of going anywhere. the unrestricted free agents that were absolutely necessary to focus on were matt cullen and doug weight, who shared time centering the third scoring line and on the power play. with how crucial that third line depth was for the canes success last season, keeping one of these players was key to maintaining scoring depth and powerplay success. with cullen being able to play center and wing, along with a point on the power play, he was the obvious choice to keep. doug weight, as good as he is, didnt fit the canes system quite as well as cullen, and at his age, was too expensive to keep. so what does jr do?

he blows the whole thing and lets both of them go. cullen to the rangers, weight back to st louis.

now, who did jr get to fill this hole? nobody. the free agent list is shortening daily. a speedy center and pointman? hard to find, harder to sign.

dammit jr, you better not fuck this up. i want another cup.