First a couple quick notes on the Canes 2-1 win versus the Flyers on Friday night in Raleigh:

--Big 1st goal. For a team that is struggling to score right now, getting a 1st goal of any kind is huge. When it comes from a 4th-liner Brad Malone netting his 1st as a Hurricane it is even bigger.

--What a different 1 (a pair of them jersey-wise) makes. The Canes really do look like a different team with Jordan Staal in the lineup. His big body filling up the middle lane across all 3 zones gives Peters the option to go top-heavy with a Staal/Staal line and reslots the other centers closer to where they belong.

--More of the same. It is no surprise that a not-so-common Canes win included another strong outing from Cam Ward who was not asked to steal it but who was solid and another decent game defensively including another perfect night shorthanded.

--Well wishes. Best wishes to Claude Giroux coming out of it better than the initial view from another of the ugly kind of injury that occasionally happens in a game where participants where razors on their feet.

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In part 1 of this series on December 29 (see history), I voted for retooling not completely blowing up the current team and starting over.

In part 2 on December 30, I assessed the options for players who are UFA this summer and voted to keep Sekera (just too hard to backfill a top 4 D slot on the open market) but to trade all of the other UFAs who yield a reasonable return.

So that gets to the biggest set of decisions on which of the big names to keep and build around and which to jettison to try to build a better team. I actually think it is a little bit early to make final calls on this. Jordan Staal is only 2 games deep in his time under Bill Peters. Eric Staal is just getting past the point of his usual slow start and also might have been delayed by his summer injury setback. Canes fans are anxiously waiting to see if some combination of getting healthy and a restart can jolt Alexander Semin out of his horrendous start to the season. We have yet to see all of 3 of these top forwards in the lineup together. So what follows is partly a "what I'm watching" over the next 4-6 weeks to sort this out.

First, I think there are 2 key external inputs. First is budget. The small market Hurricanes who are not surprisingly struggling a bit with attendance right now sit only $3.4M under the cap ceiling and with only a few modest contracts coming off the books this summer. I have to imagine that Ron Francis will be tasked with somehow cutting salary a bit on the way to somehow getting better. Second is that I cannot imagine that Alexander Semin at $7M for 4 more years is tradable right now.

So with the goal of retooling not starting over and also trying to cut some $, it is like this for me - I build around a core of Justin Faulk and Andrej Sekera (if he will re-sign) on defense and Jordan Staal, Eric Staal and Alexander Semin (out of untradeable necessity) at forward, and I look to cut cost and get better by trading Jeff Skinner and Cam Ward.

Player by player:

--Jordan Staal. I really think his skill set and style of play fits very well with how Bill Peters wants to play. He leans toward playing in straight lines down the middle of the ice and despite not being the most gifted top 6 center offensively is adequate in this regard. As the Canes learned during his absence, his strength is the ability to eat up a ton of the tough minutes against other teams' best, defensive zone draws, penalty kill, last few minutes, etc. and generally breakeven or even win. He is a great option to eat 18 or so of the hardest minutes.

--Eric Staal. Now nearing the halfway part of the season, he has yet to find his 1st line NHLer gear. He has had a couple good games maybe not coincidentally upon Jordan's return. That is worth watching but in my opinion a little early to call a resurgence. Where he is right now is not surprising maybe. He has historically been a slow starter, and this season he piggybacked a summer injury that eliminated training until right before camp and a new system/coach upon his usual slow start.

With a clean slate, I want (and there is time to get it) a 20-game evaluation of Eric Staal to see if he can find a stretch of playing like the big, skilled power forward that he has been in the past. If he continues to sputter into late February and early March, then I start to consider that maybe a couple injury setbacks and reaching 30 has put his best years behind him. And at this point, I consider trading him if I can find a taker.

If instead, he shows that he still has the higher gear despite the early season struggles, then I think I push him to decide what he wants. When his contract is up, he will have made $70 million wearing a Hurricanes uniform. He has to hate captaining a team that has not made the playoffs in 6 years (barring a miracle this season). He also sees the attendance issues every time he takes the ice at home. I put it to him if he wants to be part of rebuilding the franchise to match the runs from 2002, 2006 and 2009 and offer him a true hometown discount contract for something like $4.5M-5M/year for 4 years starting obviously when his current contract ends after the 2015-16 season. Either he takes it or I take or negotiates back sincerely willing to offer some help, or I take it as a sign that he wants to try elsewhere at which point I shop him this summer.

--Alexander Semin. Per my introductory comments, I think he is untradeable right now and for that reason is at least temporarily part of the core. Someone is going to chime in that the Canes should buy him out. It makes no financial sense. If the Canes buy him out, they still pay him 2/3 of his $7M salary (so $4.7M) just spread out a little differently. The Canes save only $2.33M and must replace him. The cap savings are everything for big market teams who are looking to circumvent the salary cap system and somehow get to spend more money. But for the Canes who are already closer than they care to be to the cap, all that matters is the real $. In that regard, it makes much more sense to keep a struggling Alexander Semin and his incredibly high ceiling versus buying a $2.3M replacement with a much lower ceiling.

--Cam Ward. Because of the need to cut $, I think Ward must go. To be clear, it is not because he is not playing well. After horrendous start in October, he has been consistently solid since then with 0.926 and 0.927 save percentages. With Khudobin in tow and the possibility to add a 1B for something like $1.5-1.8M this summer, this is just simply the easiest way to cut $ without automatically creating another hole to be filled.

The big question is whether he can be traded. Coming off a couple rough years and with 2 years of $6.8M cap hit remaining, he was clearly untradeable this summer. But with more time ticking off his contract and much better play this year, I think it takes 2 things for him to have limited market value (basically meaning the Canes don't have to eat a huge chunk of his contract): 1-He must keep playing well for another month or 2 to get closer to the trade deadline; 2-A contender who can at least fit him in this year's salary cap must be in need of a goalie. At that point, the cap hit for next year could be manageable. A big market team could in theory buy him out this summer for a cap tax of about $4M spread out roughly $2M each over 2 years. No one really wants that, but for a team that really needs a goalie just maybe that will be a better option than trading a bunch of futures to fill a short-term hole. And (sigh), the Canes can always pick up a portion of the remaining deal or at least take back a smaller bad contract to make it work.

--Jeff Skinner. His is the other "cut" in my equation. Now nearing 5 reasonably full seasons and 300 games in the NHL, he just has not developed into a good top 6 forward. He has enough skill and scoring ability to produce offensively to be a top 6 forward, but defensively and making the other plays, he still just has not figured it out. You need to look no further than this Monday's loss to Montreal to see it. He first watched a Canadien beat Bellemore off the boards at the half wall and skate straight toward him on the way to the middle of the circles. He did not really even react and the result was a goal against. Later he had a puck whacked toward him by a defenseman at the defensive blue line. When he took a swipe at it instead of firmly moving the puck at least outside the blue line before losing it, he lost a battle at the blue line. It was in the Canes net 2-3 seconds later. Right now, I would say that Skinner is a very good 3rd line offensive contributor who also boosts the power play, but he is not an every situation top 6 forward at least on a good time. There is also the concussion risk. At the point when he gets hot for 2-3 weeks and starts scoring goals in bunches, I would look to trade him to a team that needs offense for a comparable age (ideally lower cost) top 4 defenseman and something else. If you manage a defenseman who brings some offense in the deal, you could cut $, improve defensively and actually not give up as much as you think offensively when you swap out Skinner's goal scoring ability but upgrade the ability of the team to move the puck and generate offense off the rush.

--Justin Faulk. I think he is the most obvious part of the core. While his upswing in offense has been a nice surprise, I have actually been disappointed in his game this season. He has been better recently, but just has not been anything close to a sound, consistent defenseman over the course of the season. But he has the skill set, is racking up experience and is still very young for where he is in his development. Based on that and his long-term deal, he is 1/4 of the long-term plan for how to fill out the big minutes/matchups on the blue line.

If I get my way, the Canes cut about $13 million in salary between Skinner and Ward. Ideally between maybe eating a portion of Ward's deal and what they get back in terms of roster players, the Canes take back only something like $5-7M in salary and actually cut cost heading into next season.

The best case scenario is that Skinner gets immediately backfilled by McDavid who brings some immediate offense but is hopefully on a fast path to being a more well-rounded player. He also plays for a significant discount for 3 years on their entry level contract. Sekera, Faulk, Hainsey and return from Skinner trade give you a top 4 until the system (Fleury) can produce another top 4 D option. Khudobin plus a 1B (maybe from Ward trade) gives you 2 options that could work for a lower cost in net.

What say you Canes fans?
--Is Ward playing his way up to tradable? Would you trade him?
--Is it crazy to trade an offensive talent like Skinner from a team struggling to score enough? Or am I right that he just is not a true top 6 forward because of non-scoring deficiencies?
--Is there any chance that Eric Staal both refinds his higher gear and then takes an "I want to stay" discounted deal to help the franchise? Or should he and his contract also be on the way out?
--Is there anyone who would just eat 2/3 of Semin's contract in a summer buyout and move on?

The questions are many...

Twitter=@CarolinaMatt63

Go Canes!

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