Chris Botta of Islanders Point Blank runs down the Islanders need for a new defenseman in his latest entry.  A few main points from the article:

• Injuries: Radek Martinek out for the season.  Andy Sutton out at least two more games.
• Depth: Rookie Andrew MacDonald already plays 12 minutes a game.  Brendan Witt is a team worst minus 15.  Dustin Kohn is the only option to be called up.
• A few players that Botta thinks would make sense: Aaron Ward, Garnett Exelby, Brent Sopel or Joe Corvo.  Botta prefers Corvo or Ward.

A move could easily be made for all these rumored available defensemen.  As I wrote earlier, I don’t think Carolina is purely in “sell-mode” yet, moving Ward will make the team younger and may even be a bit of addition by subtraction.  Getting rid of a vet not necessarily working out may wake up some other underachieving players.  I still feel Carolina will need a young defenseman coming back or will have to wait for Corvo to return from injury to replace Ward’s minutes.

Interesting to see what will happen on the Island.   They are willing to spend, which is a welcome change to a very promising young team.

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Just a couple of trade rumors going around the league.

• The Columbus Blue Jackets are not looking to make a move at the moment according to Aaron Portzline of The Columbus Dispatch.  As of this writing only two teams have less wins than the Blue Jackets in the last ten games, the Oilers and Hurricanes.
  GM Scott Howson believes the team as it is currently constructed needs to and should improve.  If we profile Howson a bit we can see he tends to bring in younger players via trade, picking up Fedor Tyutin and Antoine Vermette in separate deals last season.  If he was to make a move like this, it would likely have to be later in the year when more teams fall out of the race.  It could also involve moving a valuable young player who has fallen out of favor such as he did with Pascal Leclaire and Nikolai Zherdev.  Nikolai Filatov anybody?
• Chris Botta’s Islanders Point Blank reports that the Islanders will spend cap room to make the playoffs.  As Botta mentions, the Isles need two top six forwards preferably a center and left wing.  With their salary cap situation the way it is, GM Garth Snow can make a salary dump type move and acquire a good player without giving up a high draft pick or solid prospect.  A quick look around the League renders very few clear-cut sellers.  Pure speculation but Paul Kariya or Matt Cullen would make sense if their teams decide to sell.
• Chip Alexander’s Canes Now says the Hurricanes have no easy way out of their current situation.  Mired by injuries, they sit in dead last in the Eastern Conference and have won only three out of their last ten games.  So what is GM Jim Rutherford to do?  Bob Harwood of Canes Country lists his speculated options in his recent discussion.  Tough call on what is the best way out of the team’s funk, it certainly feels like the calm before the storm, or in this case Hurricane.