WRAL Sports Fan

Hurricanes

Staal's status unclear, Canes' GM looking to make personnel moves

By Adam Harris

Nov 3, 2009

Winless in their last nine games, the Carolina Hurricanes' terrible start has general manager Jim Rutherford interested in shaking up his roster.

The Canes' GM joined The Insiders on 99.9 FM The Fan on Monday.  Rutherford says the team isn't sure about the injury status of Eric Staal, but he's looking at some potential roster moves regardless.

"I had hoped to wait until the end of November to really see if the team could come together," Rutherford told The Insiders. 

"Here we go again, with the injury to our best player.  So, I'm starting to talk to other teams a lot more now.  And, I'm embarrassed to say that this early in the season."

It has been more than three weeks since the Canes won a game, Oct. 9 against the Panthers. 

"It's just figuring out how to win one game, and at least getting some breaks in a game that we can win,"  Rutherford said.  "We get absolutely no breaks at all, but that goes with losing.  Our discipline's not good, we're taking way too many penalties.  Everything that can go wrong, is going wrong."

After a dreadful October in which the Hurricanes went 2-7-3, November got off to a rough start too.  The Canes dropped a home game to the Sharks 5-1 and may have also lost Staal for a few games.  Rutherford wasn't certain regarding Staal's status as of Monday afternoon, but said the team's trainers weren't optimistic after Sunday's injury.

"Right after the game they were saying that they felt he would miss some games,"  Rutherford said.