'Canes sign Melichar

[Triangle_Cat]

Here's our other defensman...

RALEIGH, NC—Jim Rutherford, President and General Manager of the National Hockey League’s Carolina Hurricanes, announced today that the team has signed defenseman Josef Melichar (YOH-sehf mehl-ee-KHAHR) to a one-year contract worth $1 million.
“Josef is a big, strong and experienced defensive defenseman who will be a shut-down player for us,” said Rutherford.
Melichar, 29, played in 310 NHL games with the Pittsburgh Penguins from 2000-01 to 2006-07, before spending the majority of 2007-08 with Linkoping of the Swedish Elite League (Elitserien). The Ceske Budejovice, Czech Republic, native posted an NHL career-best 15 points (3g, 12a) with Pittsburgh in 2005-06, while playing in 72 of the team’s 82 games. Melichar (6’2”, 220 lbs.) has scored seven goals and earned 33 assists (40 points) in his 310 career NHL regular-season games, while averaging 17:50 of ice time per game. The Penguins selected Melichar in the third round, 71st overall, in the 1997 NHL Entry Draft.
With Linkoping in 2007-08, Melichar earned eight assists and ranked third on the team with 74 penalty minutes while playing in 50 of the team’s 55 regular-season games. He added a goal and an assist (2 points) and led the team with 39 penalty minutes in 16 playoff games as Linkoping fell to HV-71 in the Elitserien finals.

[solorca]

I'm not that thrilled with the pickup, but we'll see how he works out. The Canes have done well with some lesser level players recently.

[jbland]

Originally Posted by solorca

I'm not that thrilled with the pickup, but we'll see how he works out. The Canes have done well with some lesser level players recently.

Yeah, like missing the playoffs the last two years......Just sayin.

[ProfessorPeppers]

Originally Posted by solorca

I'm not that thrilled with the pickup, but we'll see how he works out. The Canes have done well with some lesser level players recently.

I don't see this guy making much of an impact. I like what I see for next season, Brindy will be back, Whitney, Staal (of course) Samsonov, and then the re-signing of Eaves, and Hordichuk. We should be pretty quick at the least. I also like the potential pairing of Corvo and Pitkanen, we'll see how it pans out but if we can avoid the injury bug for once then I think we will have a good shot at the division crown.

[solorca]

Originally Posted by jbland

Yeah, like missing the playoffs the last two years......Just sayin.

Very few of our free agent pickups can be blamed for that. None of the players we've signed over the past few seasons have been big time names. Nearly everyone has performed above expectations. You can blame the team for not signing enough high level players, but you can't blame the players that we did sign.

The only major mistake that I can put on the front office in recent years is trading off a stud defensemen because he didn't want to join the Canes just for the Stanley Cup run.

[Triangle_Cat]

I'm not that upset about the Jack Johnson thing. We got Gleason out of the deal and he is a top 4 defensmen himself. Plus we got the Belanger rental as well as being able to get out of Tverdosky's contract -- which was huge.